


call it what you want

by wildflower (bangtrashsyd), zhujungjungting (runswithchopsticks)



Category: NU'EST, Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: A Lot of Winking, Alcohol, Assassins & Hitmen, Bloodplay, Dialogue Heavy, Doctors & Physicians, Double Penetration, Gunplay, Knifeplay, Light Angst, M/M, Murder, Murder Mystery, Porn with Feelings, Power Play, Threesome - M/M/M, Thriller, hitman turned watson!jonghyun, inspired mycroft!minhyun, p0rn in chapter 3 tags:, powerbottom Jonghyun, sherlock!seongwoo, slight!Temperature Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-01-28 20:54:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 59,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12615284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bangtrashsyd/pseuds/wildflower, https://archiveofourown.org/users/runswithchopsticks/pseuds/zhujungjungting
Summary: "Don't make people into heroes. Heroes don't exist and if they did I wouldn't be one of them."- The Great Gameedited 24/12/18





	1. with a bang, not a whimper

**Author's Note:**

> special shoutout to cat (zhujungjungting) for proof reading this!  
> links:  
> [sherlock!seongwoo concept board](https://twitter.com/wildflower_kjh/status/927891934189776896)  
> [au Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/wildflower_kjh/status/927532880175046657)

**ONE: WITH A BANG, NOT A WHIMPER**

**MINHYUN**

“Hi, Mr. Ong.” Minhyun grins up at the man the way he knows adults think look innocent. “Is Seongwoo in?”

“Hi, Minhyun.” The man leans down to ruffle his hair, opening the door a little wider to let him in. Minhyun waves back at his mother, who leans against the door to their apartment opposite. She raises a hand in acknowledgement before disappearing back into the house. “He’s in his room.”

“Thank you.” Minhyun beams at him, showing the space where his two front teeth are supposed to be. Seongwoo’s father ruffles his hair again before going to take care of the other child. He bounces into his nemesis’ room, a picture of childlike curiosity. “Seongwoo-"

The boy glances up at him with irritation, hand paused on the telephone.

“You didn’t knock.” Seongwoo hisses, turning away from him and murmuring something into the phone. He’s probably calling his best friend, a kid that lives a few stories downstairs. “That’s rude.”

“Now you know about manners.” He quips, and his neighbour scowls. He steers clear of the tank full of bees and edges his way around the makings of a wooden pirate ship on the floor.  “Someone down the block jumped off. Want to figure out why?”

Seongwoo grins now, turning to face him with a familiar look in his eyes. It's the same look he sees when he looks into the mirror.

“Yes.” He breathes, and Minhyun steps out of the way as he barrels out of his door.

****FOURTEEN YEARS LATER** **

There's something magical about Seongwoo.

His ex-neighbour is beautiful, of course, but his beauty is of cut corners and broken dreams. A hint of darkness in his eyes is hidden by a mask of humour, red lips curled up into a taunting smile. Even now, when the entire class listening intently to the Forensics Class, he sees the way Seongwoo flips through the resources: intent and firm, reorganizing the information to fit his own goals. Minhyun looks away when Seongwoo meets his eyes over the monitor, and shuffles his own notes around. His notes are outlined clearly in black ballpoint and highlighted with the cheapest, most neon yellow highlighter. He knows if he takes Seongwoo's notes to copy, they'll be scrawled neatly in black fountain pen, outlined with his favourite red and grey Mildliners.

So you see, there _is_ something breathtaking about Seongwoo: something dark and dangerous. And Minhyun, as helpless as he is, is drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

He can only hope he doesn't get burned.

**SEONGWOO**

"Honey, I'm home!" He shouts, tensing when there's no reply. Setting his backpack down on the shoe cabinet and rounding the artsy tent, he makes his way into his room to check if his experiment has been stolen. Sure enough, the little fridge is empty. _"Bitch."_

He hears the toilet door creak open, and he ducks back into the corridor. Jonghyun is wiping his hair, a towel wrapped around his waist and shaking his head as droplets of water land on the carpet.

"Did you throw away my experiment?" He demands, and his housemate doesn't spare him a glance.

"I said no human parts with your food." Jonghyun insists, brushing past him to pull on a shirt and pants. "You broke that rule, _again."_

"What happened to _privacy?"_ Seongwoo pouts, and Jonghyun ducks into his walk-in wardrobe to dress himself. "Wasn't that part of the deal too?"

"You're not very good with sneaking around." His friend observes, popping out from his wardrobe with another of his flannel shirts and black jeans ripped at the knee. "How are you going to graduate if you keep this up?"

"I'll graduate." He waves off the hidden concern, and Jonghyun heads back out to the living room, where his spreadsheets are distributed across the table. "Are you holding up okay?"

"I have a life long contract, Seong." He reminds dully, and Seongwoo frowns. "You better make sure you graduate, or else you'll get into the same shit as me."

He stays silent, watching as his friend settles back into routine.

"When's your next hit?" He sits down carefully opposite him. Jonghyun stays focused, flipping through schedules and informative papers.

"Next week. I'll need to cover my tracks, so you can have the house for two weeks."

"You have an alibi, right?" Seongwoo checks, and Jonghyun finally looks up from his opened laptop, the blue light from the monitor casting odd shadows across his gaunt face.

"I've got a flight to New York right after, Seong. Don't worry." Jonghyun drops him a wink and he swallows the uneasy feeling in his chest, nodding supportively to please his friend. He bends back over his notes, scribbling down little reminders to himself in the margins of the paper.

A long time ago, Jonghyun had been the best student in the Seoul Military Academy. He landed a scholarship, scored the highest on both physical and physiological test scores for two years, then disappeared from the roster. Seongwoo found him, angry and bruised, at the back alleys of the Academy, wiping his knife down with a cloth soaked in bleach, then lighting up all the evidence in flames. Jonghyun was tired, hurt, thoroughly harassed by the number one gang in Seoul. Seongwoo offered him a place to stay, a voice inside him telling him that Jonghyun could be _trusted,_ even with the half mad glint in his eye and a very sharp knife. That had been two years ago, and since then Jonghyun accumulated more and more guns, became better and better until he was the best hitman in town. They moved into this house, a very pretty and very normal thing, three months ago.

He didn't mind the money. It _was_ nice to eat gourmet, organic food everyday, and smell the pleasant smokiness of the cigars Jonghyun smoked to please the gangsters when they came by.

He was scared, however, for his friend. Jonghyun was a racing car, speeding the way down to hell and going faster and faster, leaving a trail of cigar smoke behind him. He was going to get caught one day, and Seongwoo was terrified for the day it happened. For the past two years, Jonghyun's been his rock, helping him through his coursework and his side hobby.

Speaking about his side hobby, he reaches under the table for his special letter box, the one where Jonghyun knows to drop the letters that're addressed to Mr. Constellation.  He flips one open, seeing the deposit for a hundred dollars inside and pulling out the letter. Grabbing his mug from the table, he takes a long swig of the lemonade that Jonghyun makes on a daily basis to fulfill his sweet tooth and sits down opposite Jonghyun. His housemate clears his side of the table, establishing the line separating the both of their work spaces. He opens the letter, scoffing when he sees the contents.

_Dear Mr. Constellation,_

_My husband disappeared three weeks ago and the police isn't helping. Can you help?_

"Another cheating husband." He tells Jonghyun conversationally, and the other grunts. "Should I take it?"

"I told her to come back tonight." Jonghyun says absently, and Seongwoo gets up from the table to dress in more expensive clothing.

"Can I have a cigar? Just for show?" He asks, and his friend rolls his eyes at him. He hides a smile at the attention, seeing the crease in between Jonghyun's eyebrows relax and a familiar look of exasperation crossing his face.

"Do you _know_ how bad they are for your health-"

 

He finds the remains of the lady's husband in a ditch, the head severed neatly from the body from what looks like a robbery. The man is naked, and he leans in close to smell the scent of bleach soaked into the rotting skin. He's not going to find traces of the attacker's DNA on this one. The muscles are tight and cold: rigor mortis has already begun, although the body has clearly been moved.

He bites his lip and looks down at the man agitatedly. Nothing about him matches the classic murder or robbery. He'll need Jonghyun for this one.

Taking a break, he whips out his cell phone to call his friend.

_"What do you want?"_

"His head's been cut off, he's naked, soaked in bleach, and lying in a ditch." Seongwoo recounts quickly. "What do you think?"

_"Coming."_

Jonghyun rounds the corner of the street less than fifteen minutes later, jogging over quickly to meet him. He doesn't bother asking him how he tracked him down - the cautious man probably traced his phone's GPS signal or something.

He moves quickly, elegantly, with the grace of a well practiced crafter. Seongwoo watches, silent, as Jonghyun slips on the gloves and peers into the man's throat, his nose, his ears... His resident hitman dissects the man without taking him apart easily.

"See the livor mortis here?" Jonghyun waves him over, pointing to the stripe of white flesh across the man's chest and the purple discoloration that decorates the border. "He was held down, maybe by a pole or a plank. The fact that you can see this purple though... he's been dead for more than eight hours. You'll need do an actual autopsy to check."

Seongwoo's head snaps up, and Jonghyun groans.

"No." He says immediately. "You are not doing an autopsy in my house."

"It's our house." Seongwoo pouts. "Come on, Jonghyun."

"Seongwoo." His friend warns, and he sits back on his heels. "Your job was to find the man. You've found him."

"I want to know why he died." He frowns, and Jonghyun gives him a despairing look.

"Fine, I'll get a friend to do the autopsy and you can watch. But no way in hell are you bringing him home." He nags, and Seongwoo hides a triumphant smile, pressing his lips to his friend's cheek. It's cold and wet, and Jonghyun shoves him off with a half hearted grin, mind already miles away.

The autopsy report reveals that the man was held down by a pole (just like what Jonghyun said), metal from the lack of splinters in his chest. The man was decapitated with a carpenting tool, a mechanic saw-like instrument used to cut large planks of wood.

Seongwoo finds the murderer a few days later, Jonghyun silent and vengeful by his side. His friend has never allowed him to meet his clientele without company, and as Jonghyun produces a pair of handcuffs to restrict the murderer's movement, he can't help but agree it's a good thing. They drop the murderer off at the police station and watch as he stumbles in, thoroughly terrified. He killed the lady's husband because he had a grudge, some petty reason that Seongwoo promptly forgets. He drives them home, checks their combined bank account for a thousand dollars, and knocks back their vodka before eating dinner. Seongwoo cooks a dinner of kimchi fried rice and calls in an order for fried chicken from Jonghyun's favourite place.

"Promise me you won't bring more humans home." Jonghyun's eyes are already drooping.

"Promise me you'll come home." Seongwoo rebuts, and his friend glances up at him. There's something in Jonghyun's eyes that makes him tense, something vulnerable and scared and weak. He opens his mouth-

And the moment is gone. Jonghyun smiles slowly and ruffles his hair.

"Don't worry, you silly boy." He slurs fondly. "I'm a professional already."

 

He misses him.

Seongwoo eyes the sobbing boy in front of him. The kid's still in his high school uniform, and he recognises the insignia of the expensive prep school on his chest.

"Will you tell me what happened or not?" He questions impatiently, crossing his legs in one swift movement. Jonghyun would know how to deal with these sort of clients, would hold their shoulders and pat the tears away until they could speak coherent sentences. He's not the same. "Speak. I don't have all day."

"My girlfriend," The boy hiccups. "We found her face down on the pavement, and she's dead."

"You didn't bother calling the police?" He raises an eyebrow. "How do you know she'll still be there?"

The boy's fists clench, and he waits.

"She was at my house. I went out to buy dinner and she-"

"So you're saying someone pushed your girlfriend off the side of your building?" He interrupts in disbelief. "Who was at home?"

"My helper, but she took care of me since she was young, there's no way she would kill her."

Seongwoo hums neutrally and gets to his feet, reaching for the expensive coat he uses to impress rich clients.

"I'll take the case. Let's go."

She landed straight on her stomach, he observes. The body lies crumpled on the pavement, face disfigured and nose smashed in from impact. The state of her face suggests that she fell from a height of three stories, and he looks up to the house. It's a dark, foreboding two-storey place (rich people, honestly) for a prep school student and his helper.

He leans back down, using his gloves to pick the smashed watch from the victim's hand. The glass is shattered, but he can tell that the motor stopped at 4.30.

"What time did you leave the house?" He asks, and the boy wrings his hands.

"4.15pm." He mumbles. "I don't understand."

The girl has her coat on, and he peels back the coat sleeve to see dark bruises on her wrists. She's wearing shorts even though it's in the middle of autumn, and there are glass fragments in her thighs. He pictures the struggle: someone catching her by the wrists and holding on tight enough to bruise. Her ankle is already twisted oddly, and he prods the bone. It's broken - and cleanly at that, with a round, purple mark on the outside.

Someone threw a glass object at her and broke her ankle. There'd been an assault on her face as well; the damage is too severe for a fall off of the tallest storey of the boy's house.

He meets the helper, a white-faced old maid. She's old and feeble, limping around on a walking stick. She's going to dump the rubbish at the rubbish collection site for the neighbourhood just as he enters the house, so he throws his gloves into the black garbage bag she's holding with a polite smile. The helper pales even further at the sight of her young charge, hurrying away.

There were traces of pollen under the girl's fingernails from scratching the attacker's clothes, along with baby pink fibres. He takes a walk around the house and observes the laundry basket, where there's a baby pink sweater.

"Kid, what did you say you wanted to become again?" He asks very carefully, remembering the rows of rose bushes surrounding the house.

"A botanist." The boy sounds far too close to him and he turns. "Figured it out, mister?"

_Fuck._

The boy has the hammer in one hand and he brings it down, catching him by surprise as it knocks into his right arm. He snarls, catching the boy's wrist with his left hand and pushing his pinky back, aiming a kick into the boy's solar plexus and bringing his right elbow down onto his temple.

The boy struggles, and Seongwoo kicks his feet out from underneath him, sitting on his chest and punching him in the face.

"Well played." The kid huffs. "How did you figure it out?"

"The damage to the face is a combination of an assault with a rounded end of an object, not just the fall." Seongwoo flips the boy over and presses his face into the ground. He needs help, and immediately. "Your helper is too weak to inflict that much damage. You want to admit yourself to the police or shall I do it for you?"

"Fuck off, I already called them." The boy's breathing is laboured, and he hears the sirens wailing. "They'll be here in a few minutes."

Seongwoo groans and fumbles in his back pocket, reaching for the emergency pill Jonghyun made for him to slow his heartbeat. He waits until he hears the police bang on the front door before letting go of the boy and biting down on the pill. Police protocol means that they'll only wait thirty seconds before they bang the door down, and he runs himself into the wall before collapsing at the doorway.

Twenty seconds for the police to run up the staircase, and he feels his vision start to blur as the blood from the gash on his forehead drips down his face. The pill is taking into effect, and he slips into unconsciousness just as he sees the boy rises, hammer in hand.

 

"Seongwoo."

He grunts.

 _"Seongwoo._ It's Minhyun, from Forensics Class."

He groans and opens his eyes, suddenly very aware of the beeping all around him. There's someone sitting in the chair next to the hospital bed, and he turns his head to the side.

His classmate is in that chair, and he narrows his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" He chokes out. "Water."

Minhyun hands him a glass, eyebrows furrowed and face tense.

"You tell me." Minhyun says calmly. "You were about to call me. Why?"

"What happened to me?" He asks back. "I don't remember."

"You were found with a high school girl, murdered. The boy who did this to you, he killed her." Minhyun says in audible concern. "What happened, Seongwoo?"

"What did he do me?" He looks down, noting with panic how he can't see his gun hand from where it's bandaged. "My hand... What-"

"Seongwoo." Minhyun's tone is solemn and pitiful. He tenses up at the formal address of his name, at how his classmate looks entirely apologetic. "He damaged the motor nerves on your right hand."

He feels the world condense all around him, vaguely aware of the incessant beeping on the heart monitor. It remains constant, and Minhyun leans forward in his chair, his face open and worried.

"You know what that means, right?"

Of course he does.

He'll never graduate from Seoul Military Academy. He'll never make Jonghyun proud.

He'll never fire a gun ever again.

**ONE YEAR LATER**

"Lieutenant Colonel, huh?" He eyes his former classmate's insignia with a wry grin. Minhyun glances up at him with annoyance.

"I can't keep covering your ass, you know." Minhyun snaps back, unlocking the gate so he can step out. He heads to the small sink, washing his hands and face and slipping into someone's slippers. His feet are bare and cold.

"Sure you can." Seongwoo quips. "If you want your special cases to be solved, you need me."

"I thought you’d grow out of the Rebellious Teenager part of your life, but you haven't." Minhyun says tiredly, and Seongwoo notes bitterly how his badges shine under the harsh lighting. They make their way down the corridor back to the lobby. "Really, Seongwoo? Why would you break into a vintage shop?"

"Ah, but is it really a vintage shop?" Seongwoo grins. "Everything has a backstory, LC. Even plain old vintage shops. Who bailed me out this time? Jonghyun's out of the country."

"I did." Minhyun stops to glare at him, and tosses him his Converse. "Those are my slippers, give them back."

Seongwoo looks down at the fluffy white rabbits on said slippers and tries not to laugh, imagining his friend strolling down the rows of cells in these with his fancy dark green uniform.

"You can have these back." He rolls his eyes, and Minhyun plucks them off the floor and into the shoe cabinet.

"Can you please stop doing this?" Minhyun complains as he walks him to the door. "It's tiring to tell all these guards you have amnesty - they always look at me like I killed their grandmothers."

"I know some who might do it. Kill grandmothers." Seongwoo laughs, and Minhyun slaps his shoulder.

"Not so loud." He warns, pushing him past the glass doors. "Get yourself home. I'll call you when I've got a case."

"Don't take too long, sir." He tilts his head and beams, waving goodbye. "I get antsy when I don't have work to do."

Minhyun gets into his police car and flips him off, driving away quickly. Seongwoo reaches into the pockets of his hoodie, realizing that he only has a rumpled two dollar note. He sighs and stuffs it back in, starting to walk home.

The past year was tough. After the prep school boy was hung with the death sentence for murder and attempted murder, he was promptly removed from the SMA's enrolment list, just as he was going to specialise in Forensics. Jonghyun didn't know about it, and Seongwoo didn't tell him until he started asking why Seongwoo only hung around in cafés and didn't go to school.

When he told him, Jonghyun looked so disappointed.

"I told you you shouldn't take clients without me." He rambles, and Seongwoo rests in his armchair, feeling very small. "I'm so sorry, Seongwoo, I should have stayed."

"It's fine." He looks at his hand, hating how weak it feels. The doctor said that it would gain more strength as it healed, but it would never be the same. Good thing he was ambidextrous, or else he would be in a larger mess.

"I kicked myself out of SMA." He says softly. "They gave me an honorary degree in Forensics."

Jonghyun just sighed and pressed his forehead into the table. When he came home the next day, he brought files worth of contracts to try and help him find a job. Seongwoo took one as an receptionist for six months while Jonghyun hovered constantly like an anxious mother, only leaving for hits.

Then Minhyun called, and now they had The Arrangement. Minhyun ignored the fact that he was best friends with a renowned hitman in exchange for his help with his cases. And Minhyun paid well, straight from the Korean government's pocket. JR and Minhyun had technically never met after Jonghyun's disappearance, and they tried to stay out of each other's way. Minhyun seemed as if he never made the connection, so Seongwoo shut up about the specifics, using his housemate's code name to address him during conversations.

Seongwoo enjoyed living like this, knowing he was useful, but he often felt _bitter_ when he saw Minhyun rise through the ranks so fast that he was congratulated by the Chief of Army Staff himself. It wasn't _fair._

He huffs under his breath and reaches for the keys in his back pocket, opening the gate and shutting it behind him as he walks up to the door.

He's over it, really. Seongwoo drops the keys on the table and takes his hoodie off, heading to the fridge for a beer.

Jonghyun comes home the next day with his standard black backpack, driving the beat up car he loves. The guns are stored under the leather seats, and Seongwoo takes the sniper into the house as his best friend goes straight to the fridge for his gin.

"How was it?" Seongwoo asks, and Jonghyun looks up, clearly exhausted.

"I think I need to kill myself again." He mumbles. "I just killed the boss of the gang that recruited me. What do you say, Seongwoo? Want a partner?"

"Are you serious?" He blurts out, and Jonghyun shoots him a wry smile.

"I did it, Seong." He sways slightly in his chair. "I got out, for us."

Maybe it's the alcohol, or the rush from knowing his best friend is _free._ He gets up from his chair and hugs the guy tightly, and Jonghyun goes lax in his arms.

"I did it." Jonghyun mumbles tiredly into his shoulder, and Seongwoo leans their foreheads together. "Are you going to kiss me or are we going continue pretending we don't have feelings-"

He giggles and connects their lips together quickly, and Jonghyun relaxes even _more_ if it were possible. The kiss is slow and languid, and Jonghyun leans back.

"That was great." Seongwoo remembers a little late that too much alcohol makes Jonghyun very truthful and he laughs. "Stop laughing, I feel like I'm going to collapse."

"You can." Seongwoo rolls his eyes. "I've got you."

"Thanks." Jonghyun grins, and then his eyes roll back in his head. Seongwoo tightens his hold on him as he blacks out in his arms.

"It was a joke, damn it." He huffs, and begins to haul his housemate to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> clarification:  
> 1) seongwoo and minhyun lived in the same apartment building when they were younger  
> 2) JR is jonghyun's code name when he goes on hits  
> 3) jonghyun has a degree in psychology  
> 4) seongwoo's not that big of a dick compared to sherlock


	2. a study in pink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> music: [pink - sherlock original television soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQlJlZQw_hI)

**TWO: A STUDY IN PINK**

**ONE MONTH LATER**

**MINHYUN**

Seonho raps on the door of his personal office sharply, and he glances up. The intern points at the phone: The red light is on on Call Six. He smiles sheepishly, waving the boy away before picking up the call.

“South Korean Intelligence Agency, Brigadier General Hwang Minhyun speaking.” He drones into the phone, and on the other end, there’s a shout.

 _“Shit, I dropped my coffee.”_ Jaehwan says in disappointment. Minhyun props the phone against his shoulder and his ear, flipping through the papers he needs for Friday’s meeting. _“Hi Minhyun, I need your help for a case.”_

“Which one?” He mutters absently, and Jaehwan makes a choked, offended noise.

 _“The MP, Joo Insung.”_ Jaehwan snaps. _“There’s been a series of murders with the same story, I think they’re connected but none of us here in Itaewon Police Station can make sense of it.”_

“I’ll give him a call.” Minhyun rolls his eyes, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. His friend has been pretty stressed with the sudden spike in malicious activity in the prestigious Itaewon neighbourhood, after all. “Please try not to piss him off.”

 _“It’s not like I do it on_ purpose-”

 

Minhyun drops by Seongwoo’s house after work, instructing his driver to wait while he makes a pit stop. He opens the small gate in the front, clucking his tongue at the state of the front garden. The tomato patch is overgrown, and the cherry blossom tree next to the porch has already begun to wilt. If he looks closely, he can see weeds emerging from the stone steps leading up to the house. He presses the doorbell, wincing again when he hears the tone: It’s a wailing of death metal that resounds through the house.

The man who answers the door looks familiar, and Minhyun smiles awkwardly. He’s got soft black hair and glittering, innocent looking eyes. Minhyun’s heart thuds uncertainly in his chest and he fights internally to regain his composure.

“Hi, is Seongwoo home?” He questions, and the man grins at him.

“Hwang Minhyun, right?” He asks back, and Minhyun thinks that he’s seen this man _somewhere_ before. “He’s been waiting for you. Please come in.”

He leaves his shoes by the shoe cabinet and pads in with his socks on as the man leads him to the living room. Seongwoo is lying on the couch, wrapped up in a dark blue blanket that covers his entire body. His high nose bridge peeks from the knitted fabric, and he seems to be not breathing.

“Seongwoo, Minhyun is here.” The man yanks the blanket unapologetically off his friend, and Seongwoo groans.

“Tell him to come tomorrow.” Seongwoo insists, eyes still closed. “I’m composing.”

Minhyun clears his throat, exchanging an amused glance with the man over his body.

“I have a case for you.” Seongwoo sits up immediately, swinging his feet over the couch and snapping his eyes open.

“Finally!” He gasps, carding his hands through his hair. Minhyun notes with disappointment that the glass case full of cigars is nearly empty. Seongwoo’s shirtless, even though it’s in the middle of autumn and it’s a chilly fifteen degrees outside. Minhyun still has his coat on even though the thermostat in the house is turned up. The man tosses him a white shirt, and Seongwoo pulls it on obediently. “I’ve been waiting forever.”

The man rolls his eyes, turning to him with a polite smile.

“Would you like a coffee or anything?” He asks, and Minhyun’s face tightens.

“Something stronger, if it’s alright.” He sits down on the black leather arm chair. Seongwoo leans against the armrest, foot tapping impatiently.

“I want a vodka.” He orders, and the man slaps him over the head at his tone.

“Get it yourself, you lazy pig.” He scolds, giving him another polite smile and disappearing into the kitchen. Minhyun stares after him in confusion. He’s never seen anyone handle Seongwoo so well and so effortlessly.

“A new boyfriend?” He turns his attention back to Seongwoo, and the other tilts his head.

“We’ve been together for a month.” He gestures wildly. “You don’t recognise Jonghyun?”

 _Jonghyun._ He searches in his mind for the familiar name and comes up with a blank. His confusion must translate to his face, for Seongwoo guffaws at his constipated expression.

“He studied with us at SMA, but he dropped out after the first two years to become a doctor.” He enlightens him, and Minhyun remembers a skinny, small boy in his class. He remembers Kim Jonghyun, the scholarship student, the one who got the highest marks on the physical test despite being so underwhelming.

“Talking about me?” Jonghyun has two glasses of whiskey in his hands, the amber liquid glowing under the white lights. He takes a seat next to his boyfriend, flinging his feet into Seongwoo’s lap. Surprisingly, Seongwoo doesn’t make a sound and puts a hand on his ankle, tapping it with his usual nervous energy. “Here, Minhyun.”

“Thanks, Jonghyun.” He takes a long sip, relishing the liquid in his mouth before swallowing it. Jonghyun slaps Seongwoo’s hands away from the other glass and drains it himself.

“Case.” Seongwoo reminds them impatiently, and Minhyun hides his smile.

“You know about the MP, Joo Insung?” His query is met with understanding nods. “Jaehwan needs a little help, it seems that there have been a similar series of murders in Seoul. They were all found with a bottle of poison capsules, so it was previously assumed to be a suicide case. Unfortunately, since Joo is a public figure, there have been calls for an all-out investigation.” He reports, sighing when his phone begins to buzz in earnest against his chest. “Excuse me, I have to take this call. Hwang Minhyun speaking-”

 _“I need the both of you_ now.” Jaehwan sounds impossibly frazzled, and Seongwoo sits forward as Minhyun lets out a long suffering sigh. He cuts the call after Jaehwan promises to text him the coordinates of the new scene, and Jonghyun looks amused again, eyes glinting with secrets.

“Well, seems like we’ll just get started.” Jonghyun gets to his feet, going to the door to get his coat. Minhyun stares in disbelief as Seongwoo rises too, pulling a blood red sweater over himself and shrugging on his normal Givenchy coat. He’s surprised Seongwoo isn’t protesting; the last time Minhyun tried to go with him on a case, he had been stuffed into a cupboard.

“You’re coming?” He asks, and Jonghyun grins.

“Seongwoo would be lost in a plastic bag without me-”

“False.”

“So it seems that I am.” Jonghyun laces up his boots, casting him a look over his shoulder. “Are you coming, or do we have to steal your driver?”

 

“I said the _both_ of you.” Jaehwan's hair is matted on one side from the rain, and they step over the police tape. “Who’s this?”

“My partner.” Seongwoo says, short and sweet. Minhyun’s relieved that he hasn’t begun the Sass Mode, because Jaehwan looks like he’s on the verge of murdering someone. He wonders briefly if he’ll get away with it.

“You have a partner?” Jaehwan asks in disbelief, and Jonghyun steps forward, offering a hand.

“Doctor Kim Jonghyun, pleased to meet you.” He says cheerfully, a gentle smile appearing on his face. Jaehwan takes the hand gruffly, looking astonished at the truthfully underwhelming man.

“Hook, line and sinker.” Seongwoo mutters to Minhyun. “That’s what I call The Smile; it lets him get away with most things.”

“Shut up, Seongwoo.” Jonghyun snaps, continuing to smile. Jaehwan looks further astonished, but he keeps quiet and leads all three of them up to the abandoned motel where the body is.

“Her name’s Jennifer Wilson, and she hasn’t been in here long. Some kids found her.” Jaehwan steps through the rotting hallway, and they follow closely. They wind up in a room devoid of any furniture, with a lady in a pink coat lying on her stomach on the floor. The body’s already begun to stink, and Minhyun stands against the door as Seongwoo stares at the positioning of the body.

“Shut up.” Seongwoo snaps suddenly, and Minhyun tenses. It’s begun, the annoying banter. If he knew what was good for him, Seongwoo would keep quiet about that great brain of his instead of showing it off in front of the general populace. Jonghyun remains silent, moving over to stand over the body.

“I didn’t say anything.” Jaehwan protests, crossing his arms as Jonghyun kneels down.

“You were thinking, it’s annoying.” Seongwoo says, voice filled with acid. Minhyun thinks that whenever he gets a case, he starts to forget the expectations of ordinary people - like manners, for one thing.

“She carved Rache into the floor. The fingernails on her left hand are chipped, which means she was left-handed.” Jonghyun rises. “Rache is the German word for revenge, isn’t it?”

“That’s not what it means.” Seongwoo dismisses it, and Jonghyun rolls his eyes good naturedly before going back to observing. They work in silence for a couple of minutes, shifting around each other easily, naturally - as if they were long-term partners, not just boyfriends. Minhyun observes the coat on Jonghyun’s back - it’s an embroidered peacoat, and expensive, by the cut of it. He dazes a little bit as they wait, Jaehwan wearing holes into his shoes as he paces back and forth.

“Found anything?” He asks, tilting his head. Seongwoo gets to his feet and murmurs something under his breath. “Jonghyun, cause of death?”  
“The pills, obviously.” He grins like a shark, and Jaehwan begins to protest again.

“We took the bottle away, how could you even-”

“Now I know.” Jonghyun sings, waving a hand. Seongwoo glances at him in irritation, whipping his phone out to check for something. “The body’s already begun to go into rigor mortis. She’s left-handed, meaning she held the bottle with her right hand and took the pill with her left. Her right hand is slightly clawed, see?”

Minhyun sucks in a breath, looking at the doctor in a new light.

“Where’s the case?” Seongwoo puts the phone back in his pocket just as Jaehwan’s rings. He’s probably sent a text of all his observations, with his classic _‘Take it or leave it, don’t ask questions.’_ at the end. “Must have been with her phone. Jaehwan, you should really figure out who Rachel is.”

“What case?” Jaehwan asks in amazement. “How do you know she had one?”

Seongwoo stares at him in exasperation.

“My God, what must it be like in your funny little brains?” He asks in genuine curiosity.

“Seongwoo.” Jonghyun warns, and Minhyun bites on his tongue to keep himself from laughing at the contrite look on Seongwoo’s face.

“Splashes of mud on her right leg, she was dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand. The splash pattern shows that it was definitely a case.” He points, and Minhyun peers down at the revealed ankle. “Where _is_ it?”

“There wasn’t a case.” Jaehwan still sounds bewildered, and Minhyun glances up sharply. His eyes meet Jonghyun’s, instead of Seongwoo’s, and he sees the way the man orders the events in his head before arriving at a conclusion. Seongwoo goes thundering down the stairs first, shouting for a suitcase. Minhyun yells at him to stop, and Jaehwan looks over the banister down at their consulting psychopath. Jaehwan shouts at him to tell them what is going on, and Seongwoo halts himself on the second storey, peering up at them through the hole in the staircase.

“They eat the pills themselves, they’re not suicides- They’re serial killings-” Seongwoo’s words are rushed, and there’s a happy flush on his face that alarms him. “We’ve got ourselves a serial killer! I _love_ those.” Seongwoo goes flying down the stairs again, black coat lifting up behind him. They watch as he goes right out of the door before coming back and looking at Jonghyun expectantly. “Jong, what are you doing, _hurry up.”_

“Duty calls, time to babysit.” Jonghyun says his farewells to a stunned Jaehwan, touches Minhyun’s shoulder with a wink, and goes to join Seongwoo on the first floor.

“Why does he always jump from one thing to another when they’re not related.” Jaehwan complains, and Minhyun watches the two of them jump into _his_ car and drive off with an annoyed sigh.

“They are related, you just can’t see the connections.” He tries to enlighten him, only to be rewarded with another blank gaze. “Nevermind. I can’t stay, I need to go to work tomorrow. Call Jonghyun if anything, you’re alone with them on this case.”

**JONGHYUN**

Seongwoo kicks the door open, dragging the pink case behind him.

“Where did you get it?” He asks, and his boyfriends huffs, flinging it onto their research table. Jonghyun already cleared the experiments and the glass tubes from Seongwoo’s latest endeavour, placing everything into the fridge labeled with a ‘Do Not Open’ sticker.

“Dug around in the dumpsters.” Seongwoo tries to sit down in the wooden chair, but he grabs him by the hair.

“Wash before you touch anything in this house.” He snaps, and Seongwoo snarls at him before stalking to the bathroom. Jonghyun eyes the suitcase, grabbing the UV torch off the counter and shining it at the code locks. There’s fingerprints on the numbers six, three and zero, and the numbers painted in black are slightly scratched.

By the time Seongwoo returns, hair wrapped in a towel, he’s already opened the case.

“You opened it.” He sounds disappointed. Jonghyun purses his lips, and Seongwoo freezes in his steps. “What is it?”

“Her phone is missing.” Jonghyun points to the gaudy pink book and the mass of yellow and orange fabrics. “I sent a text to the phone number on the luggage identification number, told the person with her phone to meet you at Hongdae train station.”

“Interesting.” Seongwoo grins, and he disappears into his room to get changed. “Jonghyun, be on call. I’ll be back.”

“Please do.” Jonghyun slams the case shut and rises to lock the door after him. “Call the house phone, _Goblin's_  having a rerun on the SBS channel.”

Seongwoo turns with a wicked smile and presses his lips to his cheek.

“Watch the roads!” He calls after him, then shuts the door and goes to the television.

 

Less than thirty minutes later, the doorbell rings again, the bass of the heavy metal thrumming through the house.

“That was fast.” He jokes as he swings open the door, only to be met with the barrel of a gun. He drops immediately, leaning his weight on his left foot and swinging out his right leg to trip the man. Kicking the gun away, he punches the unknown person once in the face, hard and strong.

“Ow.” Minhyun protests, and Jonghyun sits on his chest.

“What are you doing?” He asks, leaning his forearm on his ex-classmate’s neck.

“I thought Seongwoo would answer the door.” The guy chokes. “Can you let me go?”

“Fair enough.” Jonghyun slides off his body, grabbing the gun off the floor and whistling at the detailing of blue flowers on the barrel.

“You can have that.” Minhyun shakes himself, stumbling to his feet and wincing as the oxygen rushes to his head. “You’ve got a mean punch.”

“You give things like this to random people?” Jonghyun asks, slipping the gun into the shoe cabinet as he nudges the door open to allow him in.

“Just friends.” Minhyun says softly, and their eyes meet again before Minhyun clears his throat and hangs up his coat.

 

“I still don’t understand, are you accusing Seongwoo of murder?” He questions, and Jaehwan steps around him to get to the fridge. “Hey, don’t open-”

“Holy _shit!”_ Jaehwan slams the fridge shut, leaping away from it and breathing hard.

“There’s a sticker there for a _reason.”_ He scolds, and Jaehwan is white with shock. “Are you breathing?”

“That was a human head.” Jaehwan’s voice sounds strange. “In your fridge.”

“Yes.” He agrees. “Seongwoo keeps saying that he uses it for experiments. I’ve tried to dissuade him, because it’s frankly alarming when I open the wrong fridge in the morning. As you can tell, it didn’t work.”

Jaehwan eases his breathing slowly, stepping around him and leaving the kitchen quickly. The last he saw of him, Minhyun was leaning against the kitchen doorway and enjoying the shrieks the officers made at the sight of Seongwoo’s room. Jonghyun knows there are _more_ of his kind of experiments stored in there, including the ones that make even him uneasy.

“Who are _you?_ ” One of them question, and Jonghyun turns to see the rookie wave his police baton at his friend.  

“Hwang Minhyun, Brigadier General from SKIA.” Minhyun eyes him with distaste and raises a hand to flick the baton away. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”

Seongwoo steps across the doorway at that moment, making a very grand entrance into his own home as five guns are suddenly pointed at him.

“Honey, I’m home.” He tells Jonghyun, unperturbed as he sits down to remove his shoes. “What’s with all these people?”

“They think you killed Wilson.” Minhyun speaks up, and Seongwoo scoffs openly at all of them.

“Did you find out who Rachel is?” He asks Jaehwan. Jaehwan still looks very pale, but he sets his jaw firmly. He tells them that Rachel was Wilson’s stillborn daughter, and that if Seongwoo does not find out who the murderer is, they’ll have to bring him in for having ownership of the deceased’s items.

“Why would she carve her daughter’s name in the floor?” Minhyun’s brows furrow, and Jonghyun thinks back to the scene of the murder, imagining the frantic way she scratched to make a point.

“It means something, a password, or a person with the same name-” He realises, and Seongwoo’s eyes meet his. “The password to track her _phone.”_

“She’s smart.” Seongwoo thinks it out loud, getting onto the coffee table and closing his eyes. “She’s had a long string of lovers, she would never lose her phone - it would threaten the secrecy of her affairs. She probably planted the phone on the murderer”

“Why are you up there?” One of the junior officers ask nervously.

“So we don’t breathe in the same air - I might be poisoned by the utter uselessness of your brains.” He snarks, and Jonghyun passes him the laptop. He’s hopeless enough with his phone as it is, and Seongwoo’s always been the more technologically advanced one. In his back pocket, his phone starts ringing and he steps away from the buzz.

“Hello?”

 _“Taxi for one here, sir.”_ Jonghyun tilts his head. Inside, Minhyun begins to dial for the woman’s phone, and everyone starts listening out for the ringtone.

“I didn’t call for one.” He snaps, then cuts the call. Jaehwan sighs in relief as they don’t hear anything, meaning that the phone is not in the house. “Seongwoo? Where’s the phone?”

The phone starts to buzz in his hand again, and he takes the call.

“I didn’t call for a taxi.” He insists, just as Seongwoo turns to face him. “What is it, Seongwoo?”

“The coordinates to the phone.” Seongwoo looks confused. “It’s here.”

 _“Sir, sir. My taxi is already.”_ The voice on the other end is grating and insistent. He looks to Seongwoo, sees the way the jigsaw pieces fit together. Seongwoo runs to the door and wrenches open the door knob. Jonghyun follows him out onto the porch and hears the click of the phone as the taxi driver cuts the call off on his end. The mobile phone he’s holding has a bright, neon pink case. The both of them jog towards him, keeping a wary distance. Jonghyun remembers the gun Minhyun gifted to him in his backpocket.

“Taxi for one.” The driver smiles, and it is not a kind smile. “I could turn myself in, but you would never figure out how I killed them.”

“Seongwoo, no.” Jonghyun advices, but Seongwoo’s already getting into the car. “What about me?”

“Taxi for one only.” The driver chirps, and Seongwoo rolls down the window.

“I’ve got to keep myself out of prison, darling.” He grins, raising a hand to say goodbye. Jonghyun registers that Seongwoo is holding onto his phone, waving longer than he usually does. He nods in understanding, and the driver gets into the seat. “Don’t follow, I need to figure this one out myself.”

He returns back to the house once the driver starts the engine, hearing the screech of the tires against the bitumen as Seongwoo is driven out of a safe range. Slamming the door open, he schools his expression into one of annoyance and hollers for Jaehwan.

“Get out.” He snaps, and Jaehwan gives him an apologetic bow. “What a _waste_ of my time. Out of my house, all of you.”

Minhyun pauses after the string of apologies from the officers, and Jonghyun shoves him out of the door without a second word, drawing the bolt across and going to turn on the television. He grabs the laptop and begins to trace Seongwoo’s phone, lifting the giant painting off its hook and removing the sniper hidden behind it. The GPS signal shows that they’re nearing Gangnam, and Jonghyun grabs both the laptop and the sniper, along with his usual shooting set.

He makes it through the back door to the second car they own, a sleek, black model that drives _fast._ If he’s going to make it to Seongwoo in time for back up, he’s got to drive slightly above the city’s speed limits, and the old black car they park out in the front as a decoy would never make it.

**SEONGWOO**

“Where are we?”

“You know every street in Seoul, Mr. Ong, you know exactly where we are.”

“988-5, Daechidong Street. Seoul Academy International School.” He runs his fingers along the beaten up desk, dragged into the middle of the table. The driver pulls a chair over and settles opposite him, eyes gleaming with excitement. “Why here?”

“It’s open, the cleaners are working. The thing about being a driver is that you always know the quiet spots. I’m surprised more of us don’t branch out.” The driver removes a bottle from his pocket, shaking out two pills. One is a dangerous red, and the other is an alarming shade of green. Seongwoo stares at the pills, vaguely interested.

“Bit risky, wasn't it? Took me away under the eye of about half a dozen policemen. They're not that stupid, and Jonghyun will remember you.” He tilts his head, propping his cheek up with his right hand.

“That’s not a risk.” The driver points to the pills on the table. “This - _this_ is a risk. What’s it going to be, Mr Ong? Your fan talked to me about you the whole night, so I just _had_ to meet you.”

“A fan?” He questions, and the driver grins, telling him that the MP was a fan of his blog and all the scientific essays he’s written.

“You are brilliant. You are. A proper genius. ‘The Science of Deduction’. Now that is proper thinking. Between you and me sitting here, why can't people _think?”_ The driver is becoming animated, and Seongwoo gives him a quick glance over to look for any possible weapons. “Doesn’t it make you mad? Why can't people just think?”

“Oh I see.” Seongwoo grins secretively at him, reaching out to smooth the pad of one finger over the red pill. “You’re a proper genius too. Tell me how this works.”

“There's a good pill and a bad one. You take the good pill, you live; take the bad pill, you die.” Seongwoo picks up both the pills. They’re identical in shape, except for the colour. “You choose first, I’ll have the other. We eat them at the same time.”

Seongwoo thinks about the MP - the worried, fraught looking woman. He had probably brought her somewhere similar, offered her a listening ear. And Wilson? She had lost a child and was in an unhappy marriage, so someone to talk to must have relieved her.

“This is what you did to the rest of them: you gave them a choice.” He mumbles, and the driver grins.

“Now I’m giving you one.” The driver leans forward put his head on the table, staring up at him as if he were a particularly interesting experiment. “What’s it going to be, Mr Ong?”

Jonghyun’s nowhere in sight, so he begins a little game of his own, scanning the driver from head to toe all over again. Thinking back, he remembers the little photo frame propped up on the dashboard of his car. The frame’s new, but the picture’s old, with a strange little cut out where the mother is supposed to be.

“Your children.” He says first, watching the man tense. “You’re an estranged father, but you love your children. Your clothes are at least three years old - ah, three years. Is that when they told you?”

“Told me what?” The driver shifts in his seat, and he smiles.

“That you’re a dead man walking.” He teases. “And because you’re dying, you’ve killed four people.”

“I've outlived four people. That's the most fun you can have on an aneurysm.”

“No.” Seongwoo scans him one last time, seeing the patched up holes in his raincoat and the way his hair is asymmetrical - he cuts it himself, to save money. “No. No, there's something else. You didn't just kill four people because you're bitter. Bitterness paralyses you, but love is a much more vicious motivator. Somehow this is about your children.”

“Very good, Mr Ong.” He nods in satisfaction, as if he were _pleased_ that Seongwoo’s figured out who he is on the inside. A surprising change, since people normally curse at him for seeing through them. At worst, they hit him. “I have a sponsor, and he pays well. You're not the only one to enjoy a good murder. There's others out there just like you, except you're just a man... and they're so much more than that.”

“Who are they?” He asks, mind fixated on the possibilities, the chances. The driver smiles sleepily, nice and slow.

“Time to make a choice, Mr Ong.”

 

“What if I don't choose either? I could just walk out of here.” Seongwoo considers the option briefly, and the driver pulls open a drawer, setting the gun inside flat on the table. He’s planned this.

“You can take your fifty-fifty chance, or I can shoot you in the head.” The driver runs his fingers over the gun and places his hand above the bottles. Seongwoo eyes the make of the gun. “Funnily enough, no-one's ever gone for that option.”

“I know a real gun when I see one.” He muses, leaning forward. The driver offers him no resistance as he checks, pointing it at him straight in the face. The man doesn’t flinch, and he sets the weapon on the table. “Well, this has been very interesting. I look forward to the court case.”

“Before you go, which one did you pick? I wonder if you picked the right one.” The driver muses, leaning his chin into his hand. “A last game of chance for me, Mr. Ong.”

“Of course, child’s play.” He answers lightly. The driver mentions for him to take one, and he chooses the green one. His counterpart raises the red pill to his lips, and he mirrors the action-

There’s a compression of sound he recognises, the light _ping_ of a bullet flying through glass but at the same time muffled. Shooter’s attached a silencer to his gun. The driver collapses off his chair, and Seongwoo’s on his feet immediately, rounding around the desk to see him. Jogging to the window, he sees the hole in the glass, and the mouth of a sniper disappearing from the wall opposite. He snarls and goes back to kneel next to the man, who’s been shot in the chest and is breathing heavily.

“Was I right?” He demands, and the driver smiles, teeth slick with blood. “Okay, tell me this. Your sponsor. Who was it? The one who told you about me, my fan. I want a name.”

The driver continues to grin stupidly up at him, and he presses his hand to the wound, hard. He chokes on his breath and hacks, jolting the wound further against Seongwoo’s hand.

“A name! _Now!”_ Seongwoo all but screams into his face, and the man’s mouth opens.

“Hyunbin!” The driver shrieks once, then he sees the light go out of his eyes and lets him go, sitting back on his heels and panting for breath. _Hyunbin._ Now _that’s_ a name he’ll remember.

 

“Why have I got this blanket? They keep putting this blanket on me.”

“Yeah, it's for shock.” Jaehwan sighs tiredly, sitting down next to him in the back of an ambulance. Minhyun is next to him, the both of them looking at him ill concealed irritation.

“I'm not in shock.” Seongwoo shoots him an exasperated glare. Jaehwan glares back, throwing another blanket over him. He struggles with the heavy sheets, trying to get it off before he starts to sweat.

“Yeah, but some of the guys wanna take photographs.” Jaehwan deadpans, pointing to the crime scene photographers, who, for some reason, keep aiming their cameras at him. He exhales pointedly through his nose, and gives one of them a particularly venomous glare.

“As I recall, the contract didn’t cover loss of life.” Minhyun just flings a pillow at his head to make a point. “Really, Seongwoo? Must you always be in mortal danger?”

He just snarls again at his friend, taking the packet of bread he passes him and ripping off a piece. “So, the shooter. No sign?”  

“Cleared off before we got here.” Jaehwan nods, before glancing over at him in surprise. “You didn’t see who it was?”

“Good.” He mutters under his breath, ignoring the second question. He’s got a reputation to upkeep. Minhyun tilts his head and looks at him with wary, suspicious eyes. He gives him a large smile, and Minhyun begins to look upset. “There’s enough photos. I want to go home.”

**CHRISTMAS DAY**

**UNKNOWN**

He chuckles quietly under his breath and follows the governor. Plugging off his ear buds and wrapping them tight around his fist, he waits patiently as the door to the conference room opens. He’s been flown specially from Seoul to Imjado, which he always thought was deserted. He frowns in thought. An accounting error. He’ll have to check his eyes on the country again; something  _ this  _ big shouldn’t have skipped his notice. 

There’s someone is waiting inside at the far side of the room, looking out of the floor to ceiling window with his hands behind his back. The governor shuts the door after him, effectively banishing his bodyguards from the room as well. He lowers his sunglasses, folds them, and sets them on the table. Oak, it seems.

Minhyun turns around to face him, letting out a long sigh. He seems tired, exasperated. 

His eyes dart to the mantle above the faux fireplace, where a scene of a Christmas nativity has been set up. There are little toys surrounding the manger: animals like horses and goats and sheep.

“Ah.” He grins at Minhyun, reaching out and picking the baby Jesus up from his cot. “Isn’t that sweet? Merry Christmas, Minhyun-hyung.”

Minhyun rolls out the chair at the head of the table and sits down in it, kicking the chair next to him out. “Won’t you sit down?”

He scoffs, looking down at the baby figure he is holding.

“I wrote my own version of the nativity when I was a child.” He looks up to grin lewdly at Minhyun. “‘The Hungry Donkey.’  It was a bit gory but, if you’re gonna put a baby in a manger, you’re asking for trouble.” He lets go of the object in his hand, watching it slam against the table and crack precisely in two.

“You know what this place is, of course?” Minhyun ignores him, as usual. Boring, boring. No one  _ interesting  _ likes to play anymore these days. He remembers a time when the man sitting in front of him was quiet and determined, pliant and accepting.

“Of course.” He picks up another animal, a chicken. “So am I under arrest again?

“You remain a person of interest, but until you commit a verifiable crime you are– I regret – at liberty.” Minhyun corrects, voice low and gravelly. He moves the animals, putting the chick in the manger and placing a snake on top of it. 

“Then why am I here?” He asks. He’s genuinely confused; Minhyun hasn’t contacted him in  _ years  _ since they went their separate ways. Turning, he glances at his ex-boyfriend’s eyes - the look in them is dark.

“You’re a Christmas present.” Minhyun clicks the last ‘t’, being very precise. He smiles and opens his arms, making a bold move to sit in his lap.

“How’d you want me, hyung?” He croons, leaning their foreheads together. Minhyun stares straight through him. Disappointing. He offers no resistance when his ex slips him off into a seat of his own.

“There is, in this facility, a prisoner whose intellectual abilities are of occasional use to the Korean government.” Minhyun glances out of the widow again. He reaches forward to inspect the bottle of wine sitting on the table. It hasn’t been out long, and Minhyun doesn’t drink much, so it must be for him. He uncorks the bottle.

“What, for, like, really difficult sums, long division, that sort of thing?”

“He predicted the exact dates of the last three terrorist attacks in Seoul after an hour on Twitter. That sort of thing. In return, however, he requires treats. Last year it was a violin.” Minhyun looks back at him, looking astonished as he puts the mouth of the bottle to his lips.

“Don’t look so surprised, hyung. You know I like to drink.” He says, taking a large gulp.

“It’s Minhyun. To you.” His counterpart looks infruriated. 

“Sure, hyung. What did this mysterious person want this year?” He sets the bottle down and makes a face. Cheap wine. 

“Five minutes’ unsupervised conversation ... with you.” Minhyun pushes the bottle back to its rightful spot, removing a blue lanyard from the inside of his coat and placing it on the table.

“Me?!” He grins and blinks mock-bashfully before lifting one hand to his chest, pretending to look amazed. He can practically  _ hear  _ Minhyun’s teeth grinding against each other. “With me?!” Leaning forward, he snatches the pass and studies it carefully.  _ FULL ACCESS.  _ Delightful.

“He has noted your interest in the activities of a friend.” Minhyun eyes him carefully as he speaks. 

“So... what’s he got to do... with Ong Seongwoo?” He hooks the lanyard over his neck, throwing the pass over his shoulder so the blue cord hangs like a choker off his neck. Minhyun looks incredibly pained. Somewhere inside him remembers that once upon a time they had loved each other. A lot. He squashes the feeling inside him. “Whatever you’re about to tell me-” He gets to his feet, circling around the shadow of the man his ex once was.”-I already know it’s gonna be-”

He reaches the other end of the long table, leaning forward and bracing himself against the desk with his forearms. 

_ “-awesome!” _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just realised that the last part looks a little bit like mystic messenger or something BUT the person will be revealed soon dw


	3. the hounds of baskerville

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **PLS READ:**  
>  shoutout to cat for writing out the p0rn part of this chapter!! haha if you're sensitive about that kind of stuff, start scrolling when you see Jonghyun talking to Minhyun about his pulse, there are 2 line breaks after the p0rn part where i carry on with the sherlock part!!
> 
> and also thank you to em (@jisungverse) and cat for helping me to edit this!
> 
> **also ANOTHER warning** :  
> hello this is [zhujungjungting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/runswithchopsticks/pseuds/zhujungjungting/works?page=2)/[cat](https://twitter.com/zhujungjungting) I just wanted to pop by and give y'all a warning about the pr0n part: it's **threesome, gunplay, knifeplay, powerplay, bloodplay, and double penetration.** if you're not comfortable with any of those please move along!  
>  this part will also be crossposted to my own ao3. thanks! <3

**THREE: THE HOUNDS OF BASKERVILLE**

**SIX MONTHS LATER**

**JONGHYUN**

"I need a place to stay." Minhyun has what looks like his entire life packed in three suitcases in front of the door. Jonghyun leans around him to see his driver back up the driveway and screech out of their street.

"We don't have any rooms." He bites his lip. Minhyun _does_ look wrecked.

"I'll take the couch." He pleads, and Jonghyun sighs, letting him in. "Thank you."

He helps him with his luggage, pushing everything in and shutting the door tight. Bolting the locks across, he studies the back of Minhyun's profile: He's been spooked, scared even. There's a tension in the set of his shoulders and the way he's tapping his fingers against his sweatpants- Sweatpants. Brigadier General Hwang Minhyun would never be seen without his uniform or standard suits.

"My house was infiltrated." He snaps, setting his suitcase on the table with an alarming thud and kicking Seongwoo’s legs off the couch. “My office too.”

"Why here then? You could use your privileges." Jonghyun fetches him a warm cup of tea, and Minhyun gulps half of it down before collapsing on the couch.

"It's closer here." Minhyun says, his voice final. Jonghyun raises his eyebrows, exchanging a look with Seongwoo behind his back.

Minhyun's infatuation with the both of them hasn't gone unnoticed, despite what the soldier thinks. Seongwoo shrugs slightly at him, giving him a slow wink.

"Seongwoo, don't." He warns. He does not need an influx of uncomfortable feelings and awkward tensions in his household; the hospital gives him too much work as it is. Minhyun turns to look at him strangely.

"What is it?" He asks, and Jonghyun rolls his eyes at Seongwoo's pout.

"Nothing." He reminds the room, and Seongwoo gets up to brush by him. "Nothing at all."

**1 MONTH LATER**

“He’s boring.” Seongwoo points to Minhyun, who’s enjoying his cold water by the fireplace. “Do you want to know why?”

Minhyun shuffles in his seat and gestures widely, a little _far_ too wide to be sober. Jonghyun eyes the empty bottle of vodka on the floor and places his own beer on the table, retrieving the glass bottle before anyone starts throwing it.

“He pretends to be… normal.” Seongwoo pronounces the last word as if it were a curse or an insult. “He’s smart too, just like us, Jonghyun. He just spends his brain on computing what to say, what to wear, what to _look_ like… It’s a bloody waste, it is.”

“You were always the practical one out of all of us.” Minhyun’s words are slurred, and Jonghyun drops the bottle into the dustbin before returning for his beer, humming placidly as Seongwoo fires his toy pistol into the cushioned walls. “Always.”

“Want to know something else?” Seongwoo drops his pistol into the back of the couch and sinks dramatically into it, head lolling from side to side. The room is filled with the smell of alcohol, a horror movie paused on the TV screen. Jonghyun sighs. All he had wanted was a nice, comfortable TV night (preferably without alcohol) but the two idiots ended up drunk in the end. He leans forward though, propping his hip on the dining table. He’s never heard of their background story in detail; Seongwoo only told him that they grew up in the same apartment block before he moved away. “Minhyun’s in love with the both of us, but he’s too horrified with himself to say it.”

Minhyun jumps in his seat like he’s been electrocuted, and Jonghyun sighs heavily. It’s there now, the elephant in the room.

“Isn’t it true?” Seongwoo grins dopily at him. Minhyun stands up as if to leave the room, and Seongwoo clucks his tongue, sticking out his left leg to block him from leaving. “Say it.”

“Fuck off, Seongwoo.” Minhyun growls, pushing forward. Seongwoo rolls his eyes and springs to his feet, grabbing their housemate by the lapels of his robe and flipping him onto the couch. Minhyun lands hard, choking on his own breath, and Jonghyun decides that it is time to intervene. Seongwoo sits on Minhyun’s torso, leaning down so his lips are touching his. They look as if they are breathing in the same breath.

“Stop it, he’s uncomfortable.” Jonghyun nags, tugging on Seongwoo’s hand. Seongwoo takes his hand, clutching it without even looking at him.

“He’s very comfortable, believe me.” Seongwoo is grinning, and Jonghyun can hear the triumphant smile in his voice. “Look, his pupils are dilated.”

“I’m not - I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Minhyun stutters, and Jonghyun goes to sit on the floor right next to his boyfriend’s victim.

“Liar.” Jonghyun says gently, pressing his lips to Minhyun’s cheek and reaching forward to hold on to his wrist. The man gasps at the contact, and Seongwoo opens his mouth to let out a breathy, delighted laugh.

“How did you know?” Minhyun’s eyelashes flutter, and Seongwoo sits up.

“Because-” He takes off his hoodie, and Jonghyun brushes his fingers across Minhyun’s brow. The man closes his eyes. “We took your pulse.”

“My pulse, huh?” Minhyun breathes out. His voice is kind of raspy, as if it were stuck and dancing in his throat. He closes his eyes for a moment, as if he were too exasperated and exhausted to continue with the conversation, but the manner in which one of his hands comes up to snake around Seongwoo’s bicep tells a completely different story.

“Don’t lie to us,” Seongwoo croons. He’s practically growling against Minhyun’s lips, the expression on his face something that’s simultaneously both predatory and soft.

“We don’t have time for that,” Jonghyun adds, picking his words with a slight caution, although his lips curl up afterwards.

“Jonghyun’s right,” Seongwoo agrees. Minhyun doesn’t give him a response, or rather, his voice fades into his breath as he raises his chin and lets his eyes fall lidded. It’s a silent agreement all three of them have come to in that room, and it hangs over them like a veil, inhibiting any sort of reason they might hold about what they mean to each other; and instead, it’s all replaced with something else, something that invades their senses like the sweet sickly air of a twisted passion.

Seongwoo leans down, brushing his lips against the corner of Minhyun’s mouth, and he sucks, darting his tongue out and running it along Minhyun’s skin. Jonghyun strokes Minhyun’s hair, his own lids falling, letting Seongwoo take the reins -- for now. He rests his forehead against Minhyun’s temple, fingerpads grazing softly over the almost-coarse hair atop Minhyun’s head. If he raises his gaze, he can see the bob of Minhyun’s Adam’s apple as he swallows his breath, and his cheek turns away, allowing Seongwoo to continue his exploration.

Jonghyun sees the fingers that are around Seongwoo’s bicep twitch before Minhyun’s wrist falls, as if he’d given up on any sort of resistance for the time being. Seongwoo’s palm comes up to caress one side of Minhyun’s neck as he makes his way down, and soon he’s tugging at the lapels of his robe, scratching his fingernails into the dips of Minhyun’s bones and muscle -- Jonghyun has moved to hold one of Minhyun’s hands, stroking his fingertips softly over his palm. Minhyun grunts as Seongwoo finally allows himself to sink his teeth in -- he’d at last lost just slight of his control, but it doesn’t feel as if Minhyun is about to protest anytime soon.

So Jonghyun takes Minhyun’s palm, raising it up to his face, and he sees the lines on Minhyun’s hand -- his skin is a little dry, rough to the touch, yet it’s nonetheless warm, firm, possessed by a power that both Jonghyun and Seongwoo know very well.

Minhyun’s fingers curl in slightly, and Jonghyun slots his own fingers in the crevices of the slight webbing on Minhyun’s hand, linking their limbs together in an almost reassuring way. He bends Minhyun’s wrist and presses a kiss to the inside of it, skating his lips over the warm skin before coming to a stop right over where Minhyun’s pulse is. He sinks his teeth in just slightly, beginning to build the pressure of his bite.

Minhyun’s breath hitches, and his head whips around, staring at Jonghyun with a wild glint in his eyes. Jonghyun connects their gazes. “The pulse,” he begins, “it tells a lot about a person.” He kisses over the red indenting created by his teeth. “The basic: whether you’re alive or dead.” The sleeve on Minhyun’s robe had fallen to expose his forearm all the way to his elbow. Jonghyun runs a fingertip along the inside of Minhyun’s arm, coming to trace the blue-green of a vein, before his own tongue replaces his finger. The trail end of the slick path he draws is wet with a long kiss, and when he lifts his mouth, he sees the beginnings of a purple bloom. “The next step? How you feel.”

“I know this,” Minhyun states, his voice hushed. Seongwoo nuzzles into the crevice of his neck and chin.

“We know that you know this,” he says, swiping his tongue over his lips in an almost teasing manner. He sits up, weight balanced easily on Minhyun’s waist, hands coming to rest on the latter’s abdomen. “But do you _understand_ it?”

“One-twenty-eight over eighty,” Jonghyun murmurs, against Minhyun’s skin, “excitement, or illness?” He brushes his lips and nose over and up Minhyun’s arm, and Minhyun’s head turns, watching Jonghyun’s face rise to meet his. Jonghyun leans forward, tilting his head slightly, lidding his eyes so he looks at Minhyun with his gaze angled downwards. A thread more, and their lips will touch -- their noses are already brushing against each other. “Eighty-eight over forty-two. A depression, or illness?” He presses forward, and their lips finally meet, although it’s not in much of a kiss -- not right now, anyways. “Which are you?” A hand slides down to Minhyun’s wrist and presses its thumb against where Jonghyun knows Minhyun’s pulse is. “Should you tell us, or should we find out?”

Minhyun retracts his face slightly, just so he can growl out his words, demeanor polarizing from the one he’d previously adorned. “If not for Seongwoo here, you would’ve been on the floor a long time ago.” He lets out a heavy breath, and the scent of vodka fills Jonghyun’s nostrils. Under any normal circumstance, he’d find the smell rather revolting, but this time around, it seems that the essence of the alcohol goes straight to his head -- it’s intoxicating. “Get off of me, Seongwoo,” Minhyun grumbles, words slurred slightly. A palm is placed on Seongwoo’s stomach, and with drunken strength, Minhyun manages to shove Seongwoo off of him, the latter tumbling off of the couch and onto the floor.

“Rude,” he sneers, but Minhyun’s too busy having pushed Jonghyun forcefully onto the floor with a hand on his shoulder. He seats himself on Jonghyun’s waist and runs his fingers over Jonghyun’s neck, down to his clavicle, stopping his movements and curling his fingers inwards.

There’s the whisper of a pair of lips next to Jonghyun’s ear the next moment. He feels the tickle of Minhyun’s hair brushing against his face. “You want to know what my answer is?” Minhyun whispers, his breath hot and mildly wet, and Jonghyun shivers slightly from the sensation.

“Shoot me,” Jonghyun responds, the smile audible in his voice. Seongwoo chuckles at his response -- _shoot me,_ to all three of them, is a phrase that possesses more meanings than they each could count.

“I don’t have one,” Minhyun murmurs, before he lifts his head and cuts Jonghyun off in the middle of a breath as he smashes their lips together with a hot fervor, and Jonghyun finds himself gasping into Minhyun’s mouth, his chest rising and falling rapidly. The bitterness of alcohol is shockingly present -- maybe Jonghyun had disregarded the alcohol for the night, but then again, there’s Minhyun’s fists gripping into his shirt as he digs his mouth in desperate kisses, and Jonghyun finds himself desiring that taste in his sloppy reciprocation.

When Minhyun pulls back, there’s saliva dribbling from the corner of Jonghyun’s mouth, and he laps it up with a sweep of his tongue, pulling at Jonghyun’s lips with his teeth when their mouths meet again.

Jonghyun groans as Minhyun sucks on his tongue, the overwhelming sense of heat, scent of alcohol, and taste of a heady intemperance sifting through his brain, filling in the gaps of his conscious that he hadn’t been aware were there, and now his world has become hazed with sweet.

Minhyun lifts himself up several moments later, panting heavily. The grip of his fists on Jonghyun’s shirt loosen, and he brings up a hand to wipe at the corner of his mouth. Jonghyun is left pinned on the floor, gasping for breath, fingers digging into the carpet. He watches Seongwoo scoot forward and wrap a hand around the back of Minhyun’s head.

“You,” Seongwoo states, glaring directly at Minhyun, and Minhyun sucks in a breath, his lips curling into a strange smile -- one that appears as if it were forced onto his face. A similar one crawls its way onto Seongwoo’s expression; it’s as if the two had reached some mutual understanding. “That’s unacceptable,” Seongwoo sneers, his smirk evident as he yanks Minhyun closer to him by his hair. Seongwoo knocks their foreheads together, and Minhyun is toppled over, the back of his head hitting the seat of the couch.

“Is that for you to dictate?” Minhyun questions, breathily, and Seongwoo is the one to press their lips together. The action is much more soft than how Minhyun and Jonghyun had met, but it’s nowhere near chaste, nowhere near gentle and caressing with a type of love that’s bred out of what’s typical of romance stories. It’s a flame that Seongwoo hurls at him, and as Minhyun wraps his hand around the back of Seongwoo’s neck, pulling him in closer, the fire is thrown back.

Jonghyun flushes as he watches -- he’s never seen either of his housemates like this. He’s never been like this either, with an air of exaltation threading through him -- threading through Seongwoo and Minhyun too, and he’s suddenly aware of Minhyun’s awkward weight half atop him, half not. He sits up and presses himself against Minhyun’s side, his hands snaking towards the tie of his robe, and with deft fingers he pulls at the bow, allowing it to unravel and expose the bareness of Minhyun’s abdomen and chest.

Seongwoo notices his actions, and he pulls back, trailing an index finger down Minhyun’s face, neck, and chest, stopping only right above his heart. He taps his finger on Minhyun’s skin twice. “You might want to keep this safe,” he says, smirking, “or maybe Jonghyun and I might end up gouging it out.”

“Who said I even have one?” Minhyun whispers. He gazes at Seongwoo slyly. “Seongwoo. If you’re going to do this, you might as well _do this._ ” A hand lifts up the front of Seongwoo’s shirt. His head turns, and Jonghyun finds Minhyun’s gaze on him. “You too.” His pupils have become even more dilated, the glimmer in them no less wild than it’d been several minutes ago.

“Pushy,” Seongwoo comments with snark, but he nonetheless obeys, lifting his shirt over the top of his head and shrugging it off. It’s tossed carelessly over the cushion of the couch. Jonghyun finds himself swiping his tongue over his lips as he takes in the folding of the muscles of his boyfriend’s back, shadows casted in a deft manner as he flexes back his shoulders carelessly.

“You too,” Minhyun reiterates, eyeing Jonghyun with an angled gaze -- it seems as if some of his control from his drunken stupor previously had returned, yet Jonghyun knows that’s not true, because Minhyun’s expression is just as wavering, just as swimming as Jonghyun’s vision feels at that moment. Minhyun leans slightly over, and Jonghyun suddenly feels a pair of palms pressing against his lower abdomen, sliding their way up, over the ridges of his muscles, past the corrugations created by his ribs, coming to rest on his pecs. Warm and rough -- the same skin he’d run his fingertips over earlier. There are forearms against his body, a pair of lips whispering in his ear -- _You too._ In a daze, his fingers curl around the hem of his shirt that’d been pushed all the way up his body, and he pulls the cotton up and over his head.

“And you,” he whispers, knocking his nose into Minhyun’s cheek as his fingers come up and grasp Minhyun’s robe, pushing it off his shoulders before he smooths his own palms up and down the planes of Minhyun’s arms, and he finds himself grasping Minhyun’s hand again, cradling it in his grip, before he leans forward and presses his lips to Minhyun’s shoulder.

“You’ve got quite a body, Minhyun,” Seongwoo comments, stroking his fingers through the hair right above Minhyun’s ear. His tone is still haughty, although there’s an undertone of appreciation to it. He leans forward, kissing the helix of one of Minhyun’s ears, before whispering, “Maybe even up to par with your brain.”

“That’s the most of a compliment you’ve ever paid me, Seongwoo,” Minhyun returns, as he leans his head back onto the seat of the couch, allowing his eyes to slip into a half-drowned state, almost the exact same plight he’d been in before, except this time, it seems he’s retained more of his senses as Seongwoo skates his lips down, pressing them to his collarbone and as Jonghyun flutters kisses up and down the span of his bicep.

His robe has piled to the ground beneath and behind him. Jonghyun lifts himself and raises a hand, letting it gently graze Minhyun’s cheek, pushing Minhyun’s face to meet his gaze. “Move,” he says, a thumb stroking over Minhyun’s cheekbone. “Seongwoo,” he adds, “get off of Minhyun for a moment.”

Seongwoo rolls off to the side, and Jonghyun climbs onto Minhyun’s lap. Minhyun allows himself to shift position and fall backwards onto the carpet with encouragement from Jonghyun’s palms, burning against his skin, and Jonghyun scoots himself backwards until he’s sitting on Minhyun’s knees. He snakes his fingertips underneath the waistband of Minhyun’s boxers. “For someone who seemed so reluctant, you’re sure excited,” he notes, a small smile climbing its way onto his lips. Minhyun sighs, letting his eyes flutter closed, the back of his hand thrown over his forehead -- maybe the strength in his fervor from previously had faded some, but it seems that the fervor itself is still there. Jonghyun places a palm over the rise in front of Minhyun’s boxers, palming him through the cotton, and he smiles as he hears Minhyun’s breath hitch unevenly, the tremble of his lips apparent.

Jonghyun isn’t much for teasing, though -- he hooks his fingers around the waistband the next moment, tugging Minhyun’s boxers over his hips, down to his thighs, letting loose his arousal. “What should I do,” he thinks out loud, “what would _you_ like, Minhyun?”

“Whatever,” Minhyun hisses, running his palm down his face. He lifts his head slightly, looking Jonghyun in the eye, and repeats, “ _whatever._ ”

“So considerate,” Seongwoo croons, moving over so that he sits next to Minhyun’s head. His hands slide around his temples, down his cheeks, until they come to cradle Minhyun’s chin, fingertips playing a melody across his jaw. The next moment, he changes position, getting down onto his elbows and knees, before planting a kiss on the top of Minhyun’s head.

Jonghyun slides a palm onto Minhyun’s cock, stroking up and and down a few times. Minhyun’s stomach convulses, his skin rising up and down erratically for a moment, and his gasps are captured with Seongwoo’s lips on his. The fitting is a little awkward, noses bumping against chins, but it’s all lost in the air as Jonghyun leans forward, taking the head of Minhyun’s cock into his mouth. Seongwoo strokes Minhyun’s cheek as Jonghyun lets his lips sink, engulfing as much of Minhyun as he can until he feels the barest kick of his gag reflex. Saliva dribbles out of the corners of his lips at the stretch, and it some of it slips onto Minhyun’s cock as he begins to suck, bobbing his head up and down with the movement. He swirls his tongue around the head, lapping up the saltiness of Minhyun’s precome before digging the tip of his tongue into the slit. The action elicits a shaky gasp from Minhyun.

Seongwoo brushes away the hair over Minhyun’s forehead and temples, matted together with sweat, and Minhyun gazes up at him with his eyes narrowed, an almost calculating and suspicious expression donning his face, but it’s muddled with the uncontrollable lust coursing underneath his skin. Seongwoo leans down and peppers kisses all over him, but he rises the next moment, for he’d caught notice of something out of the corner of his eye.

Jonghyun strokes with his hand what his lips cannot reach. The graze of his teeth over the ridge of the head of Minhyun’s cock sends trembles through Minhyun body, and his fingers dig into the carpet beneath him. Jonghyun sinks down again, this time around willing his gag reflex to settle, until he feels the head of Minhyun's cock hit the back of his throat. He hums, and the vibrations that resound send an almost uncontrollable amount of pleasure up Minhyun’s spine. His hips voluntarily rise, but Jonghyun reaches out a palm and sets it on Minhyun’s lower stomach -- a command to keep still.

He flexes the muscles in his throat, allowing them to clench around Minhyun’s cock; Minhyun utters out a low groan, his chest heaving from the stimulation. Maybe his breaths are not quite distinguishable audibly, but the way his diaphragm rises and drops indicates his struggle.

Jonghyun lifts himself off several moments later, a wet _pop_ resounding through the air as his lips leave the head of Minhyun’s cock, a thick string of saliva connecting them. He flicks out a tongue, breaking the string and licking over his own lips, spreading Minhyun’s salty and mildly bitter taste over his mouth. When he glances up, he notices Seongwoo hunched over Minhyun, one hand smoothing over Minhyun’s hair, the other one holding his gun.

“That’s not l-loaded, is it?” Minhyun hisses out his question, one eye of his squinted as he stares up at Seongwoo.

“What if it is?” Seongwoo quips, and he grazes the tip of the gun against Minhyun’s jaw, “What’s it to you?” The cold of the metal sends a shock through Minhyun’s body. It’s so polarizing, compared to the electrifying heat underneath his skin, and he shivers slightly.

Seongwoo, having noticed his reaction, smirks. “Should it matter?” he whispers, his lips hovering above Minhyun’s nose, “should it?” He traces the outline of Minhyun’s face with the gun, a finger braced on the trigger. Minhyun watches its path silently, all while Seongwoo is lowly humming, his eyes following his hand.

Jonghyun shakes his head, once again taking the head of Minhyun’s cock between his lips, and Minhyun gasps, digging his teeth into his bottom lip. The wetness of Jonghyun’s mouth, combined with the chilling sensation of Seongwoo running the gun up and down his cheek, makes his limbs twitch, and he grasps at the carpet, his hips shaking with the struggle to keep them down.

Jonghyun moves to plant kisses up and down the shaft, sometimes sinking his teeth in softly. When he rises, he wraps his hand around the base of Minhyun’s cock and begins to stroke slowly, letting the warmth of his palm mix with the slick of his saliva.

“G-God,” Minhyun hisses through his breath.

“I thought you didn’t believe in religion,” Seongwoo hums, pressing the body of the gun against Minhyun’s cheek, and Minhyun squeezes his eyes tightly closed.

“And I thought you were incapable of love,” Minhyun retorts, but his voice is cracked as Jonghyun digs a fingernail into the slit at the head of his cock.

“Who said this is love?” Seongwoo murmurs, but he nonetheless leans forward and kisses the corner of Minhyun’s lips, darting out his tongue briefly. The hand holding the gun presses the weapon against Minhyun’s cheek, tilting Minhyun’s head towards him, and Minhyun meets him in a kiss that’s slower, wetter, but nevertheless just as intoxicating, the mix of the bitter of alcohol and a sickly sweet lust sticky between their skirting tongues and swollen lips.

Minhyun hisses into Seongwoo’s mouth as Jonghyun’s stroking of his cock increases in both pressure and speed. The stuttering of his hips, the small jerky motions as a result of the tug-of-war between his control and his instinct, is becoming fractious, and Jonghyun can feel the trembling of Minhyun's thighs under a palm. Soon, the convulsions of his chest and stomach are nearing uncontrollable, and the pressing of the tip of the gun to his skin with a whispered, “Be still,” from Seongwoo does nothing to restrain his movements.

“Jonghyun,” Seongwoo hums, and Jonghyun looks up.

“Stop. Don’t let him come.”

“Right,” Jonghyun says, and he takes his hand away from Minhyun’s cock. Minhyun groans at the loss of contact, his chest heaving. Seongwoo sets down the gun and swipes away the sweat from Minhyun’s temples. But Minhyun pushes away his hands, and with the lessened weight on his knees, he’s able to sit up and lean over, reaching underneath the couch with an arm.

“What’re you doing?” Jonghyun begins, but Minhyun’s actions are more than enough of an explanation. He pulls something out from beneath the couch, and points it directly at Jonghyun.

Jonghyun raises his eyebrows, a surprised smile forming on his face, although he immediately relaxes it into something more of a casual grin. He sees the snaking of the blooms of blue, adorned with bits of green and yellow over the shiny metal body, gleaming in the hazed golden-dark of the room.

Minhyun lowers the gun, a sly smile slipping onto his lips. Both Seongwoo and Jonghyun watch intently as he crawls forward until he’s sitting directly in front of Jonghyun. A single finger is slipped underneath Jonghyun’s chin, tilting his head up, and Minhyun angles his own head to the side, as if studying Jonghyun’s mouth, before he leans forward and softly kisses him. Jonghyun’s eyelids fall, and he sees nothing but Minhyun’s nose for a moment, until Minhyun retracts himself -- Jonghyun catches that wild glint again, but this time, it’s a little different.

And then, there’s the press of cold metal against his lips. His eyes widen slightly, but Minhyun is studying him. “Jonghyun,” he whispers, and Jonghyun lets his mouth fall open, taking in the nozzle of the gun as easily as he’d taken in Minhyun’s cock. In the back, Seongwoo lets out a hushed noise -- a little shock at seeing his boyfriend engulf a gun in his mouth, but his breath is laced with arousal. Minhyun presses the gun farther down Jonghyun’s throat, only pausing when he senses movement behind him. There’s Seongwoo, having crawled over, and he comes up next to Jonghyun, reaching forward with a hand, holding onto Jonghyun’s head as another palm comes up to stroke his hair.

Jonghyun flicks his tongue around the barrel of the gun. He feels the bitter sourness of grease slip down his throat, and he swallows, but the taste rises back up in the form of slips of drool crawling out of the corners of his mouth. Seongwoo leans forward, lapping up those bits of saliva, sliding his tongue over Jonghyun’s chin, jaw, and cheek, and Jonghyun moans at the overwhelming throttle of sensations -- there’s the shocking chill of metal inside the heat of his mouth and throat, although having slowly dissipated into a strange warm-cold. There’s Seongwoo’s hot mouth licking his skin, peppering kisses, his palm there to support him, firm and unrelenting. But also, there’s the skating of Minhyun’s fingertips, moving down and pushing past the waistband of his pants to palm at his cock.

“Your mouth really does as much work as your head, doesn’t it?” Minhyun notes, the slightest of a smile in his voice, and Jonghyun’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows, unable to move his head with Seongwoo’s grip. He shudders violently as Minhyun’s roughened palm wraps around his cock and begins to stroke.

“He’s quite skilled, isn’t he,” Seongwoo comments, and he presses his lips to the column of Jonghyun’s throat, immediately biting his teeth in.

Jonghyun emits a garbled noise, his lips trembling around the girth of the gun. Minhyun flicks his thumb over the head of his cock, his breath uttering warm sighs over Jonghyun’s skin. Seongwoo’s mouth on his neck is unbearably hot, the sensation amplified with the sinking of his teeth. The pressure of Seongwoo’s jaw against Jonghyun’s neck is violent enough, laced with a tense desire, to draw the slightest of blood, and the pain is sparking against Jonghyun’s nerves, but it’s easily washed over as Minhyun catches his fingertips over the ridge of the head of his cock.

Jonghyun can’t even feel a trickle of his own blood sliding down the span of his neck, for his body has become numb with electrifying pleasure. Seongwoo presses his fingernail into the slight wound he’s made, and drops of the most enticing scarlet he’s ever seen pulse out of Jonghyun’s skin. He swirls his fingerpad in it and drags it down the column of Jonghyun’s throat so that a streak of red appears, before he leans forward and laps it away, drinking in the spark of the sharp taste of iron against his tongue. “Delicous,” he murmurs, nuzzled up against the crook of Jonghyun’s neck.

“Hnnn--” Jonghyun hums, blinking rapidly. It’s becoming mildly difficult for him to sit up, for his body is shaking uncontrollably. Minhyun applies slightly more pressure to the gun, and the cold metal presses against the back of Jonghyun’s throat. His lips tremble violently around its girth, because with the increased pace of Minhyun’s stroking and the flicks of his wrist, his sense of self is becoming more and more lost. Seongwoo places a palm on his chest, feeling its heaving in time with Minhyun’s movements.

“Don’t let him come,” Seongwoo says.

Minhyun smirks slightly. “Didn’t think I was planning to,” he replies, his words short and slightly breathy.

Jonghyun’s lips waver against the gun, even more saliva spilling out of his lips as he's just on the verge of choking. His breaths are becoming so rushed that they’re audible in the room, a slight _whoosh_ and whistling as he inhales desperately through his nose. Another garbled noise vibrates throughout his throat, dissipating into a string of caged moans as Minhyun moves his hand to stroke and fondle his balls.

“He’s close,” Seongwoo says, and Minhyun immediately pauses his movements, retracting his hand. He tugs the gun out of Jonghyun’s lips, and Jonghyun immediately falls forward once the weapon is released from his mouth, his hands catching him as he pants, staring down at the carpet beneath him. The edges of his vision waver, but the intoxication in his conscious is enough to encourage him to turn back around and latch his lips onto Seongwoo’s, who fervently reciprocates his desperate kisses, a smile adorning his expression.

Jonghyun manages to topple him over, but when he pulls himself away and lifts himself back up, his gaze lands on something sitting on the coffee table a ways away -- the handle is a plastic white, the blade silver and slightly dull, but nonetheless sharp enough to have been used to peel an apple earlier. “Minhyun,” he rasps out, “the knife.”

“I see,” Minhyun responds, the edge of his voice lilting in an almost teasing way -- he’s naturally caught onto Jonghyun’s intent. “Revenge for just a little bite?”

Jonghyun smiles smugly, and his gaze turns back down to his boyfriend beneath him. Seongwoo frowns up at him slightly. “Maybe not revenge,” Jonghyun begins, and he trails a fingertip over Seongwoo’s lips, “but his little antic there got me thinking.”

“You’re going to cut me,” Seongwoo says blatantly. It’s less of a statement and more of a question. For a moment, a hint of alarm flickers over his gaze, but it’s immediately veiled by the darkening of his eyes as a result of the perpetually invasive lust. Jonghyun leans forward, hazing the hot of his palm over his boyfriend’s cheeks and forehead.

“You’ll be fine,” he coos, dipping the finger that’d been on Seongwoo’s lips into the corner of his mouth, “blood is nothing more than a casualty to you, isn’t it?”

“If you say so,” Seongwoo states. His gaze flits over to the shadow of Minhyun’s body leaning over him. “Don’t mar me too badly,” he jests, satirical mirth dancing over his lips, “Jonghyun prefers me to still remain handsome. And presumably you too, Minhyun.”

Minhyun scoffs at his response. Seongwoo appears to intend to speak more, but he is shushed by the press of a cold blade to his lips. “Your lips?” Minhyun hums, and he stares down at Seongwoo’s face as he pokes the tip of the knife just hardly into the plush of Seongwoo’s bottom lip. A small bead of red appears at the incision, and when Minhyun retracts the weapon, Jonghyun leans down and swipes his tongue over his boyfriend’s lip. “Your cheek?” He slides the sharp of the blade in a slice just a centimeter in length along the high of Seongwoo’s cheekbone. “Your temple?” Right along Seongwoo’s browbone, Minhyun draws a scarlet line parallel to his eyebrow. “Or maybe somewhere else?” He sets down the knife, instead pressing his fingerpad to the cut on Seongwoo’s cheek, watching as the pressure applied by his finger elicits more of that crimson -- a fine color, really, compared to the sallowness of Seongwoo’s skin. Its hue is bright enough that it reveals the strength of its originator, despite the dark circles beneath Seongwoo’s eyes and the slightly sunken way his skin wraps around his facial structure.

Seongwoo huffs, turning his head away, simultaneously exposing the cheek of his that’s cut. Jonghyun leans down, smearing the blood that’s dripped through already, as if he were painting rouge on Seongwoo’s cheeks. He laps up the markings, pressing into the wound with the tip of his tongue, and Seongwoo hisses suddenly at the sharp sensation. Jonghyun grins into his kiss as he places his lips against the cut, as if apologizing for the pain he’s inflicted, only to pucker his mouth and suck, the slightest of a whistling noise being emitted from between his teeth.

Minhyun threads his fingers through Seongwoo’s hair, leaning down to softly kiss at the slice above Seongwoo’s brow, and running the pad of his thumb lightly over the cut before he decides to lift his head. With care, he strokes his fingertips over Seongwoo’s forehead as his hand that grips the knife trails the tip of the blade past Seongwoo’s cheek and down to his neck, where the flat side of the silver is pressed gently against the column of his throat.

Seongwoo gasps, his chest lifting. The cold of the metal sends a shock through his body, and coupled with the notion that the weapon is against one of the most sensitive and vulnerable parts of his body, his nerves stand on end.

Minhyun slides two of his fingers underneath Seongwoo’s chin, lifting up his head and completely exposing his throat before he begins to trace drawings onto Seongwoo’s skin. “Don’t swallow,” he murmurs, when the blade touches Seongwoo’s Adam’s apple. Jonghyun chuckles softly at his comment. “That might be dangerous.” Minhyun shifts his position over as he runs the tip of the blade down into the dip between Seongwoo’s collarbones. Seongwoo audibly gulps, and even with Minhyun’s fingers having released his chin, his head is still thrown up, mouth gaping, the breaths he takes clammy and wet.

Jonghyun scoots forward onto Seongwoo’s stomach, placing a hand softly on his boyfriend’s cheek. “Seongwoo,” he says, calmly, and Seongwoo’s gaze flickers down to Jonghyun’s face, although his head is still angled in the same position. “You’re doing great,” Jonghyun praises with a not-so-sweet smile, and he moves back down to sit on Seongwoo’s thighs as Minhyun begins to pave a path down onto his pecs, flicking the blade against a nipple.

Seongwoo gasps, his hands twitching, toes curling and uncurling erratically. “Not so confident now, are we?” Minhyun whispers, leaning down and touching his lips to Seongwoo’s ear. His tone is teasing, and Seongwoo is about to scowl and retort back until he feels Jonghyun’s hot breath mouthing at his clothed dick.

At the press of Jonghyun’s lips, Seongwoo groans, nearly bucking his hips up. The combination of the cold blade, now dancing across his ribs, and Jonghyun’s torrid breath make him feel like his upper and lower halves are detaching with the splitting sensations of pleasure on each part of his body.

Jonghyun scoots back slightly, wrapping his fingers over the waistband of both Seongwoo’s sweatpants and his boxers, before pulling down the articles of clothing in one go. “ _Fuck,_ ” Seongwoo hisses, at the sudden chilliness of the air skating across his heated erection, “ _Jesus fuck--_ ”

Minhyun shushes him with the poking of the knife against his lips. He smirks. “I thought you didn’t believe in religion either,” he hums, a look of slightly crazed amusement flickering over his expression for a moment.

“A-And I thought you refused to admit you love me,” Seongwoo retorts, his voice hushed, thin, wispy, just the barest of a tremble in his tone.

“I never refused,” Minhyun replies, his lips quirking, “I simply told you to _fuck off._ ” The next second, he leans down, sucking in one of Seongwoo’s nipples through his teeth just as Jonghyun presses his lips to the base of his cock.

Jonghyun almost laughs as he nuzzles against Seongwoo’s skin, his tongue darting out to lick a stripe up one of Seongwoo’s balls. His boyfriend’s hips buck up at the interaction, but Jonghyun’s hands sliding up the tops of his thighs are a silent reminder that he must remain still as well.

“You sure love using your mouth, don’t you, Jonghyun?” Seongwoo grits out through his teeth.

Jonghyun rolls his eyes at the commentary. His only type of a response is pressing a wet kiss to the base of Seongwoo’s cock, eliciting a drawn-out groan from Seongwoo and a sly smile from Minhyun.

Minhyun trails his lips to the other nipple with long sweeps of his tongue and rough kisses. At the center of Seongwoo’s chest, he sucks long and hard, and when he lifts his head, he sees the blooming of an angry red-purple, before he leans down once again and kisses over it, soothing the color and encouraging it to spread across the otherwise untainted expanse of Seongwoo’s skin.

“You’re a little impatient,” Jonghyun croons, when he notices the trembling of Seongwoo’s abdomen and legs from only the presses of his lips across the body of Seongwoo’s cock. “Even worse than Minhyun here.”

Seongwoo audibly clenches his jaw, before gasping out, a little angrily, “You’re just insane, Jonghyun.”

“If he’s this uncomfortable--” Minhyun begins. He’s tapping his fingertips across Seongwoo’s chest, letting them dance to some drunken and arrhythmic choreography, smiling in an almost unnaturally serene way. “--then should we--”

“I-I’m not uncomfortable,” Seongwoo utters out, but based upon the way his eyes are blown wide and the sweat beading at his temples from the simple feathery, barely-there trailing of Jonghyun’s fingerpads across the length of his cock, tells a completely different story: one of Seongwoo’s nerves being lit on fire from their ends, and even his previous drunken and delighted haze isn’t enough to smother the flame beneath his body.

Minhyun glazes over Seongwoo’s protest. “Shall we stop this teasing?” he asks, looking up at Jonghyun. Without even glancing at Seongwoo, he pushes the blade of the knife he holds against the plush of his lips, effectively silencing the man beneath him.

“Perhaps,” Jonghyun replies, and when his and Minhyun’s gazes connect, an understanding passes between them. He climbs off of Seongwoo’s thighs and crawls towards Minhyun, nudging him down onto his back easily with a firm palm on the center of his chest. “I have an idea,” he whispers against Minhyun’s lips, and Minhyun can feel the imprint of his smile. “You’ve got lube?”

Minhyun nods. “Get up for a moment,” he says, and Jonghyun complies, lifting a knee off of Minhyun’s waist. He watches Minhyun walk around the couch, disappearing from sight, only to return several seconds later with a packet held in one hand. With a lazy toss, it lands in Jonghyun’s palms. “You’re prepared,” Jonghyun comments, with a slight huff.

“I kind of have to be,” Minhyun mutters, rolling his eyes.

“Didn’t know sex was part of your job,” Seongwoo quips, having recovered from his trembling. He flips over onto his stomach, watching the other two men with a half-lidded gaze and a lazy gaping of his mouth.

Minhyun remains silent as Jonghyun sets the packet aside without a single word. Jonghyun pulls off both his sweatpants and his underwear, tossing them onto the couch cushions next to Seongwoo’s shirt; but both Seongwoo and Minhyun raise their eyebrows as they see Jonghyun stick his fingers between his lips. He connects his gaze with Minhyun, his eyes narrowing in an almost impish way, as if what he’s about to do will test Minhyun’s limits.

His tongue darts out, and his eyes close in bliss as he licks around each of his fingers carefully, completely engulfing a digit within his mouth only to pull it out with a wet _pop!_ several seconds later, thin bits of saliva connecting his swollen lips with his hand. He pays it no heed, instead going to dip his tongue into the crevice of his webbing, allowing grazes of his teeth against the thinner skin before tonguing up the side of a second finger.

Minhyun’s breath hitches, and if he flits his eyes over, he sees Seongwoo’s attention enraptured, hair mussed and face slightly flushed.

And to both of their shocks, Jonghyun cracks a grin before he sets a hand behind him, leaning back and raising his knees, snaking his hand down past his abdomen, cock, and all the way down to his rim. He slips in a finger with no hesitation, and once it’s fully engulfed to the knuckle, he finally lets his eyes squeeze shut tightly, a hiss whistling through his lips.

“J-Jonghyun,” Minhyun stutters, about to reach forward, but Seongwoo holds out a hand, looking at Minhyun pointedly. So Minhyun sits back on his haunches, and watches Jonghyun pull his finger out of himself, leaving only the tip inside, before pushing it all the way back in. His head falls back, and the light catches on the outline of his face, painting the frame of his head in a muted gold. “Hhhh--” he sighs, abdomen beginning to rock as he thrusts his finger at a faster pace. Soon, there’s the press of a second fingerpad against his entrance, and Minhyun gulps as he sees Jonghyun’s hole swallow it up without any resistance. Jonghyun leans back even more, and at the slightly steeper angle, he’s able to move his hips, pressing them forward towards his hand. The rest of his fingers twitch as he begins to scissor the two inside him, spreading them and pushing them back together. There’s nothing but a punch of insurmountable lust inside Minhyun’s gut at that moment, his eyes concentrated on the puckering of skin, slightly darker than the rest of Jonghyun’s body, as it stretches to accommodate Jonghyun’s fingers.

When Jonghyun presses in a third, Seongwoo scoots forward, placing his hands on the inside of Jonghyun’s knees and pushing them farther apart. Jonghyun cracks an eye open at him. “S-Seongwoo,” he stutters out, his eyes impossibly glazed and oiled, voice more of a breath than anything else.

Remaining silent, Seongwoo places an index finger on Jonghyun’s rim, and a garbled moan falls from Jonghyun’s lips. “F-Four?” Minhyun asks, a slight amount of surprise lining the tone of his voice. “Are you--”

“ _Yes,_ ” Jonghyun breathes out, “I’ll need it.”

Seongwoo smirks as he pushes in his index finger alongside Jonghyun’s own three, and Jonghyun’s eyes roll to the back of his head. He swallows, and his Adam’s apple, faced directly up to the ceiling, bobs erratically along with the uncontrollable rhythms of the waves of his chest created by his breathing.

With the first thrust of four, Jonghyun utters out a low and long groan, his jaw clenching and unclenching, lips trembling, because four is a stretch that’s unbearably painful. But at this point, that pain’s almost become indistinguishable for him -- it’s so overpowering that it numbs his body and instead weakens his limbs. His thighs shake violently, the position he holds only stable because of Seongwoo’s hand on his knee, and now Minhyun’s scooted over, holding apart his other leg for him. Even despite his control dwindling, he still thrusts his hips forward to meet the pushes of his and Seongwoo’s fingers, his ass rubbing against the carpet below him. “Stop,” he whispers, several seconds later, because the carpet is beginning to burn his skin, and he decides he’s been stretched enough.

Seongwoo and Minhyun continue to watch with curiosity and intent as they sit back. Jonghyun’s somehow become the ringleader in this, and the two other men wait for his dictation.

With the reach of an arm, Jonghyun brings the packet of lube up to his lips, tearing it open with his teeth. Still gripping the packet in his jaw, he gets on his hands and knees and crawls over to Minhyun, shifting his weight onto the latter’s thighs, and with bated breath Minhyun watches him, eyes never leaving his face, even when he falls backwards onto the carpet with a muffled _thud._ Jonghyun makes himself comfortable, and the only warning Minhyun receives besides Jonghyun squeezing the lube into his palm is the narrowing of his eyes in a confidently coy manner.

“ _O-Oh fuck,_ ” Minhyun hisses, when he feels the alarming sensation of the combined hot of Jonghyun’s palm and the cold of the lube running along his cock, pumping up-down up-down, slowly, languidly, slicking him up from base to tip. His hips rise into Jonghyun’s hand, but Jonghyun’s touch is quickly lost a few seconds later.

However, it’s easily replaced with the press of Jonghyun’s rim against the head of Minhyun’s cock, and Minhyun lets out a small gasp, his fingers threading their way to grip onto Jonghyun’s hips and help align him. Jonghyun sinks down without another word, and he sharply sucks in breath as he slowly descends, only exhaling when he’s seated to the hilt. “S-Seongwoo,” he hisses, “f-finger me.”

Seongwoo almost laughs. Minhyun can hear the slight breathy surprise in his voice as he speaks. “Alright, Jonghyun.” He scoots forward, and Jonghyun lifts himself up, his thighs trembling slightly, until only the head of Minhyun’s cock remains inside him. Seongwoo slides his finger between Jonghyun’s rim and Minhyun’s dick, and Minhyun’s breath hitches at the additional touch. The next moment, Jonghyun shakily lets himself sink down again, until he’s finally seated on both Minhyun’s cock and Seongwoo’s finger.

“ _F-Fuck_ ,” Minhyun stutters out, throwing his head back, as Jonghyun begins to rise again.

“Y-Yeah,” Jonghyun breathes out, his head lolling to the side, and he begins to gradually increase the pace of his movement. Soon, Seongwoo slips in a second finger, and Jonghyun chokes, nearly falling forward, because the stretch is borderline insane, and stars are beginning to fly at the edges of his vision, sparking with both an irrational pain and an electrifying pleasure. The way he’s digging his nails into Minhyun’s abdomen will leave markings for sure, but if that’s the expense of seeing and feeling Jonghyun on his cock, barely able to brace himself forward, his chest heaving with wet pants, eyes closed in a twisted lust, then it’s something Minhyun is willing to spend.

When Seongwoo prods a third finger, Jonghyun shakes his head. “ _You,_ ” he half whispers, half hisses, looking over his shoulder at Seongwoo, and in that single word, it’s enough for Seongwoo to understand his meaning.

“...Both of us?” Seongwoo asks, frowning. “Uh--”

“ _Yes,_ ” Jonghyun seethes, gritting his teeth, his voice a combination of anxiety, frustration, and _desperation._

Seongwoo huffs with a slight smirk, and he spits into his palm, rubbing his hands together before he slicks up his cock, his breath hitching at the first direct contact his dick has had the whole evening. He climbs closer, settling on Minhyun’s thighs, and Jonghyun raises his hips so that only the head of Minhyun’s cock remains in him. Minhyun sees that the trembling in Jonghyun’s legs has grown even more distraught, and so he grips tighter onto Jonghyun’s hips in an attempt to steady him. Seongwoo presses the tip of his dick to Jonghyun’s rim, and both Jonghyun and Minhyun let out rushed breaths.

“Ready?” Seongwoo murmurs, bracing a hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder, and Jonghyun hangs his head as a way of nodding, before he presses himself down.

“ _Holy sh--_ ” he hisses, “oh my god, oh my god--”

Seongwoo leans forward and buries his lips in the sweaty, glistening skin at the junction of Jonghyun’s neck and shoulder, both as a way of muffling his own groans and attempting to drain some of Jonghyun’s pain through the mouthing of his wet kisses and comforting nips of his teeth. Soon, the glide becomes easier, and Jonghyun’s breaths steady, although he’s still digging his teeth so intensely into his bottom lip that there’s the sharp tang of iron against his tongue when he purses his lips. His body feels like it’s being lit on fire from all ends -- it’s almost too hot, being held by two people like this, with Minhyun’s fingernails digging crescents into his hips and Seongwoo’s large palms snaking around the small of his waist. The sensation of being so absolutely _full_ sends a dull ache throbbing in his lower abdomen, but it’s the comfortable kind of ache, the kind of ache that encourages him to move; and when he raises his hips, he nearly shouts out loud, but there are Seongwoo’s fingers prying at his lips, breaking his voice into a string of garbled choking noises.

“You’ll be okay, you’re doing f-fine--” Seongwoo stutters out, his breath heating Jonghyun’s ear, and Minhyun below him pants, chest rising up and down heavily, because the rubbing of Seongwoo’s cock alongside his and the clenching of Jonghyun around both of them is sending his senses into overdrive.

“Y-Yeah,” Jonghyun whispers, and Minhyun’s hands come up to rub on his thighs soothingly. He focuses on that roughened, but simultaneously soft sensation, as he begins to build a steadier pace of up and down. Seongwoo turns Jonghyun's head towards him with a palm on his cheek and kisses him as one of Minhyun’s hands detaches from Jonghyun's thigh and clutches onto one of his palms that’re braced on Minhyun’s chest.

The heat in Jonghyun’s stomach pools easily, and it quite quickly overrides the previous pain of being stretched so wide. His thighs quiver, muscles weakened, and soon his movements are awkward and faulty, so Seongwoo and Minhyun help stable him by moving their own hips. It’s not even much long later when he feels the coil in his lower abdomen sparking, pulling tighter and tighter as the heat from his movements and Minhyun and Seongwoo’s thrusts pool into his arousal. “I-I--” he stutters, head falling forward, fingernails digging painfully into Minhyun’s ribs. “ _Holy fuck_ \--” He comes several seconds later, nearly falling forward on top of Minhyun if not for Seongwoo’s hands on his waist, squeezing his eyes shut as fireworks fly all over his vision, his orgasm wracking through his body. Ropes of white appear on his and Minhyun’s abdomens as he rides out on his high.

Minhyun groans, his head thrown back, because as Jonghyun comes, his insides clamp around both his and Seongwoo’s cocks -- the fit was extremely tight and extremely hot beforehand, but with Jonghyun pulsing around Minhyun now, his blood boils underneath his skin, and it’s unbearable. He comes as well, just several seconds later, his hands gripping into Jonghyun’s hips with an iron strength, creating indents that both know will bruise, and his stomach and chest convulse as he desperately tries to suck in breath.

Seongwoo pulls himself out with a grunt just as Minhyun and Jonghyun are beginning to recover. Gathering the last bit of his strength, Minhyun pushes Jonghyun, who had fallen on top of him, to the side, and Jonghyun rolls over, gripping his own hair with a hand as he tries to calm his breaths. Minhyun approaches Seongwoo, collapsing on top of the latter, and he sinks his teeth into the helix of Seongwoo’s ear as one of his hands comes to wrap around his cock.

“Oh--” Seongwoo goes, but it’s muffled as Minhyun smashes their lips together, strength now being fueled solely by his own desperation and desire to get Seongwoo off. Seongwoo pants damply into Minhyun’s mouth, his eyes blown wide, beads of sweat trailing down his temples, and Minhyun sucks on his tongue in time with his strokes. With a groan into Minhyun’s lips, Seongwoo comes a few seconds later, sticky and heated wet coating Minhyun’s fingers. The come is easily ignored, and Minhyun finally lets his hand rest, still gripped loosely around Seongwoo’s now flaccid cock. The two stare at each other, their lips still pressed, but not kissing, and the air they share is the exact same -- muddled and unbearably hot, but a kind of unbearable that’s oddly comforting. It’s only when Jonghyun achingly shifts over and grabs onto Minhyun’s wrist, tugging slightly, does Minhyun roll over, leaving Seongwoo staring up at the ceiling with the edges of his vision still wavering.

“You’ve got your answer, now?” Minhyun rasps, after a minute of silence.

“Not yet,” Seongwoo responds, his voice just as cracked and broken. Minhyun isn’t sure if he’s joking, for his tone indicated nothing of the sort.

“W-What a liar,” Jonghyun croaks, and if Minhyun shifts his head, he can see Jonghyun angling his gaze towards Seongwoo. There’s a quiet huff from Seongwoo, his lips barely managing to curl their way up into a halfway smile. He rolls over onto his side, facing Minhyun, and he snakes a hand over to grab onto one of his wrists. Jonghyun painstakingly scoots forward, the heaviness in his hips apparent, but nothing severe enough to hinder his intent, and slides his fingers over Minhyun’s other wrist.

“Your pulse,” he begins, and licks his lips, attempting to alleviate their dryness, “can say a lot about you.”

Minhyun’s gaze flickers to Seongwoo as Seongwoo brings his hand up to his mouth, and places the most fleeting of kisses on the back of Minhyun's hand, his eyes tilted downwards.

Jonghyun’s thumb runs over the inside of Minhyun’s wrist -- the feeling is slightly ticklish, but it fizzes into a numb warmth as he places pressure with his finger, right over where he knows Minhyun’s pulse is.

There’s silence in the room for almost half a minute, only interrupted in moments by the hazing of their breaths. When Jonghyun speaks, he finds his voice has lost a fair amount of its raspiness. “One-hundred-and-eight over seventy-two.” He shifts himself closer, and Minhyun watches him with a lidded gaze. The barest of his lips graze across Minhyun’s cheek, the breaths he exhales roll over the expanse of Minhyun’s skin. “Relaxation or satiation?”

And then, there’s Seongwoo’s hand running through his hair, a kiss placed above his brow. “Or neither? Or something more?”

 

“Find me a case.” Seongwoo insists, hand paused on the violin. Jonghyun clucks his tongue  in irritation.

“I was enjoying that.” He complains, and Seongwoo uses the scroll of the violin to tap him lightly on the head.

“I’m not your musical box.” His boyfriend collapses into the couch next to him, leaning his head into his lap.

“I would love a musical box Seongwoo.” Jonghyun teases, looking over the psychology documents his department sent him. “Pretty, and without the sass.”

Seongwoo growls under his breath.

_“I need a case.”_ He hisses.

“Call Jaehwan-"

“He says he’s on holiday.”

The doorbell rings- not the death metal- since Jonghyun nearly shot Jaehwan when he tried to press it at 2am in the morning. It’s a simple one now, a pleasant chime.

“Single ring.” He tells the man in his lap, and Seongwoo rolls off him and into the floor. His eyes light up with a sudden fever, and he scrambles to his feet.

“Maximum pressure just under the half second.” He mutters under his breath.

"Client.” They say together.

 

“It was dark, but I know what I saw. I _know_ what killed my father.” The Henry on the screen scrubs at his face, and Seongwoo reaches over to thumb the pause button on the TV remote.

“What did you see?” Seongwoo asks, and Henry blinks at him, stunned.

“I was just about to say.” He points at the television, where the video is frozen.

“Yes, in a TV interview. I prefer to do my own editing.” Seongwoo snaps, and Jonghyun shoots him a reprimanding look, handing a warm cup of citron tea to their client. Henry nods, as if stunned, and retrieves a napkin from his pocket to blow into it.

“In your own time.” Jonghyun smiles at him, and Henry lowers the napkin, stuffing it into his fist.

“Do you know North Gyeongsang, Mr. Ong?” He questions, leaning forward.

“No.” Seongwoo bites the word off, clearly exasperated.

“It’s an amazing place. It’s like nowhere else. It’s sort of ... bleak but beautiful.” Henry’s eyes are glazed over and he seems miles away back in his own hometown. Opposite him, Seongwoo has already brought a hand to his forehead, rubbing it with irritation.

“Not interested, moving on.” He prompts, and Jonghyun refills the tea.

“We used to go for walks, after my mum died, my dad and me. Every evening we’d go out onto the moor.” Henry muses, taking the tea cup and sipping it again. Jonghyun holds his own cup, watching a vein throb at Seongwoo’s temple.

“Yes, good. Skipping to the night that your dad was violently killed. Where did that happen?” Seongwoo stands to his feet and begins to pace. Jonghyun raises his eyebrows and rolls his eyes, shooting the client an apologetic smile. Henry seems to look through him, then he opens his mouth again.

“There’s a place – it’s... it’s a sort of local landmark called Dewer’s Hollow. ” Henry curls slightly into himself as he utters the name of the place. Seongwoo pauses in his pacing, turning to look back at the both of them when it is clear that Henry has stopped speaking. He tilts his head, and Henry looks disappointed. “That’s an ancient name for the Devil.”

“Did you see the devil last night?” Jonghyun asks, setting the cup carefully on the table. The client pales and nods.

“It was huge. Coal-black fur, with red eyes. It got him, tore at him, tore him apart.” Henry flinches and closes his eyes in an attempt to regain control of himself. Jonghyun can tell it isn’t working; his hands have begun to tremble. He has post-traumatic stress disorder. Seongwoo’s gaze has turned watchful. “I can’t remember anything else. They found me the next morning, just wandering on the moor. My dad’s body was never found.” Jonghyun hums and looks over to his boyfriend, raising his eyebrows. “A genetic experiment, maybe?” He prompts Seongwoo to say something, _anything._ Henry has become flushed and he looks embarrassed, as if he’s been stood up on a date that he dressed up for.

“Are you laughing at me?” He demands, and Seongwoo shrugs nonchalantly. He looks like he’s already made up his mind.

“Why?” He asks offhandedly. “Are you joking?”

Henry’s face goes purple, and Jonghyun presses his lips together. Seongwoo is such an asshole. “I’m not sure you can help me, Mr. Ong, since you find it all so funny.”

“Something happened last night, didn’t it?” Seongwoo tells the client’s back, and he spins to look at him with amazement.

“How… how do you know?” Henry asks. Jonghyun leans his head into his palm, voice muffled as he warns Seongwoo not to boast about his ability _again._ Seongwoo, as usual, refuses to listen.

“You came up from Gyeongsang on the first available train this morning. You had a disappointing breakfast and a cup of black coffee. The girl in the seat across the aisle fancied you. Although you were initially keen, you’ve now changed your mind.” Seongwoo goes to sit down in his armchair, knowing that he has the client’s attention on him now. “Punched-out holes where your ticket’s been checked…”

“How on earth did you notice all of that?!” Henry sits back down on the couch, and Jonghyun begins to rock his chair, tilting his head to look at Seongwoo.

“The train napkin that you used to mop up the spilled coffee: the strength of the stain shows that you didn’t take milk. There are traces of ketchup on it and round your lips and on your sleeve. Cooked breakfast, or the nearest thing those trains can manage. Probably a sandwich.” Seongwoo studies his profile, completely ignoring Jonghyun. Henry lets out a choked sound, almost a sob. He looks at him as if he’s found his saviour, which is bad, because Jonghyun doesn’t _share._ Unless it’s Minhyun, of course, but that’s only because he’s interesting.

“How did you know it was disappointing?” Henry asks faintly.

“Is there any other type of breakfast on a train? The girl – female-handwriting’s quite distinctive. Wrote her phone number down on the napkin. I can tell from the angle she wrote at that she was seated across from you on the other side of the aisle. Later– after she got off, I imagine– you used the napkin to mop up your spilled coffee, accidentally smudging the numbers. You’ve been over the last four digits yourself with another pen, so you wanted to keep the number. Just now, though, you used the napkin to blow your nose. Maybe you’re not that into her after all.” Seongwoo takes a quick glance at his watch, and Jonghyun vaguely recognises it as the one Minhyun owns. Oh God, they’re becoming domestic. “It’s just after nine fifteen. You’re desperate. The first train from Gyeongsang to Seoul leaves at five forty-six a.m. You got the first one possible, so something important must have happened last night. Am I wrong?”

Henry looks at Seongwoo with hero worship in his eyes, clearly having put him on a pedestal. Jonghyun hides his smile. Seongwoo is not a hero, not even close. He’s an asshole but he’s smart and useful and occasionally charming. He tightens his jaw, because he is most certainly not jealous or possessive. Of course not.

“Henry, your parents both died and you were, what, seven years old?” He cuts into the conversation, putting on the friendliest smile he can manage. “That must be... quite a trauma. Have you ever thought that maybe you invented this story to account for it?”

“That’s what Doctor Mortimer says.” Henry mutters under his breath, uncertain. “Sorry, who?”

“His/My therapist.” Seongwoo and the client say at the same time. Seongwoo adds an obnoxious: “Obviously.” right after that, and Jonghyun glares over at him. Henry informs them that the therapist suggested for him to overcome his demons, which was why he went back to the Hollow last night. Seongwoo chuckles darkly.

“And what happened when you went back to Dewer’s Hollow last night, Henry? You went there on the advice of your therapist and now you’re consulting a detective. What did you see that changed everything?” He questions. Henry’s eyes look far away again, and Jonghyun’s lips quirk. He’s going to be a difficult client; he’s incredibly slow on the useful information.  

“It’s a strange place, the Hollow.” He whispers, hands beginning to tremble again. They stopped shaking a while ago, when Seongwoo was showing off. “Makes you feel so cold inside, so afraid.”

“Yes, if I wanted poetry I’d read my other partner’s comments on my blog. Much funnier.” Seongwoo snarks, and Jonghyun lets out a laugh.

“You are so mean to him, darling.” He grins, and he beams back. Henry sighs and leans back into the backrest. “What did you see, Henry?”

“Prints, in the ground.” Henry blinks furiously. “Of a large hound.”

Seongwoo sits up then, looking the most interested he’s been in the course of the entire conversation.

“Say that again.” He insists, and Henry looks startled.

“I saw the prints of a large… hound.”

“I’ll take the case.” He agrees, and Jonghyun puts his head in his hands again. Seongwoo thinks too fast, even for him. He gets whiplash trying to understand him sometimes.

“Why not dog, or wolf?” Seongwoo leaps into the air and presses his thumbs to his temples. “Hound. Interesting choice of words. Jonghyun, book the first pair of seats to Gyeongsang please.”

 

“Is that a _minefield?”_ Jonghyun asks the driver, who harrumphs and snatches the fee for the taxi from his hand.

“Yea.” He grunts out, opening the door of the driver’s seat and heading out to haul the luggage out of the boot. Jonghyun smiles, and besides him Seongwoo stiffens.

“Now I know where to put you if you’re being naughty.” He grins, ruffling his boyfriend’s hair before getting out to inspect the village. There’s a poster pasted onto every wall, with red letters screaming out: “BEWARE THE HOUND!!” He rips one off the nearest building-a pub, probably-and studies it. There’s no relevant information on it, just an amateur’s attempt to make this hound a tourist attraction. He slaps it back onto the wall just as Seongwoo shuts the door of the taxi. The driver slams the boot and gets back into the car sullenly, driving off without another word. They duck into the pub along with the bags, which isn’t a lot. Of course, Seongwoo’s huffing and puffing by the time they meet the owner, because he’s a wimp and has no stamina.

“Eh, sorry we couldn’t do a double room for you boys.” The owner of the pub, a man named Sanggyun, leers at the both of them, giving Seongwoo a wink. Jonghyun huffs out a laugh. He doesn’t have a _clue._  

“I couldn’t help noticing on the map of the moor: a skull and crossbones.” He asks, following Sanggyun to the bar and ordering a vodka. “Pirates?”

“Nah. It’s not what you think. It’s the Baskerville testing site. It’s been going for eighty-odd years. I’m not sure anyone really knows what’s there any more.” Sanggyun hands him his shot. “Break into that place and– if you’re lucky– you just get blown up, so they say... in case you’re planning on a nice wee stroll.”

“Oh, I’m not asking for me.” Jonghyun pats Seongwoo’s hand to try and send him away so he can drink and relax for a while.

“It’s not funny.” Seongwoo pouts, and he pats his head again.

“Well, _I_ think it certainly is.”

 

Seongwoo’s actually _talking_ to people.

Jonghyun wanders over with what’s left of his second beer, and his partner looks up at him, looking crestfallen.

“Bet’s over, Jong.” He frowns, and Jonghyun bites his lip.

“Really?” He asks, taking a seat. The idiot’s up to something again.

“What bet?” The man opposite them asks, eyes lighting up.

“Oh, I bet Jonghyun here forty thousand won that you couldn’t prove you’d seen the hound.” Seongwoo shrugs one of his infuriating ones, and Jonghyun catches on immediately. “Sanggyun said you did, but I don’t know.” He adds. The man grins and drops a wink in his direction, whipping out a phone and swiping at it until he comes to whatever he’s been looking for. Jonghyun leans forward, as Seongwoo does. “Look.”

The photograph is taken in poor lighting, with a dark furred, four legged animal in the middle of it. It’s impossible to tell the size of it, or even whether it’s a wolf or a dog.

“I had a mate once who worked for the army. One weekend we were meant to go fishing but he never showed up – well, not ’til late. When he did, he was white as a sheet. I can see him now. ‘I’ve seen things today, Fletch,’ he said, ‘that I never wanna see again. Terrible things.’ He’d been sent to some secret Army place – Paju or maybe Baskerville.” Fletch leans closer, stuffing his phone back into his pocket. “Dogs the size of horses.” The next object he brings out is a faded Polaroid of a dog’s paw print, with a ruler next to it. The print is six inches long from the tip of the longest claw to the back of the pad.

“Hand the money over, Seong.” He grins, lolling his head to look at him. Seongwoo looks sulky, flinging his wallet at his general direction and stalking off. He looks back to the man, who seems amused. “Thanks, Fletch. See you around.”

 

There are many military personnel at Baskerville. Sanggyun was wrong, there _are_ people still looking after the compound after all. Seongwoo drives the rented car to the front, where a soldier stops him. He rolls down the window.

“Pass, please.” The guard says pleasantly enough, and Seongwoo hands a black lanyard over.

“You’ve got an ID for military compounds?” Jonghyun hisses over to him quietly. Seongwoo grins at him and winks _again._

“No, but Minhyun does.” He sings under his breath, taking the pass back from the guard.

“Straight through, sir.” The guard smiles quickly, and Seongwoo thanks him, rolling up the window and restarting the engine.

“How did you even get it from him?” Jonghyun inquires. Minhyun’s notoriously picky about leaving his things around; he just doesn’t. The study area they cleared for him to sleep in is always kept tidily.

“As I recall, he was a bit tied up at the time.” Seongwoo lets out a laugh, and Jonghyun rolls his eyes. “Come on Jonghyun, we don’t even claim rent from him!”

“You’re awful.” He slaps his arm, and Seongwoo catches his hand to hold it in his. They get out at the next building, joined promptly by a Colonel who holds his hands out to stop them from opening the door.

“Sorry sirs, but we need to do a check before you enter-”

“No time for that. We need the full tour now; there’s been a security breach over at the other facility.” Jonghyun takes over crisply, looking over the man’s uniform and finding a fault with it immediately. “Good Lord, soldier. Your epaulettes aren’t even. Tell your Sergeant Major that he should conduct an inspection among his own soldiers first.”

The man colours impressively and nods, stepping back in line and passing his card through the reader. Seongwoo gives the Colonel a contemptuous glare and yanks the door open. Jonghyun’s phone buzzes in his pocket and he draws it out as they walk along, the Colonel chattering away.

**Fox [15:09]**

**What are you two doing?**

Jonghyun presses his lips together to stop himself from laughing. He can picture him perfectly, sitting behind a desk and tapping his fingers on the table.

**Turtle [15:10]**

**Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.**

**We’re not home, by the way.**

**Be back in a week.**

**Or two.**

**Fox [15:11]**

**What the fuck?**

Jonghyun slips his phone back into his pocket just as Seongwoo comes to a stop to observe a scientist holding on to a beagle pass. He blinks. The scientist introduces himself as Dr. Park, then moves along. His phone buzzes in his pocket again.

**Fox [15:19]**

**Get out of there**

No full stop. Shit.

He touches Seongwoo’s elbow, sending him a panicked look.

“That is _not_ Brigadier General Hwang.” A voice rings out from the other end of the hallway. Jonghyun turns to observe the newcomer. Gold leaf, single star and three stripes. The Major. “Who are you two?” He challenges, and Jonghyun forces a grim look on his face. “Sir-”

“General!” Someone calls, coming forward to embrace Seongwoo. Jonghyun nearly chokes at the action and Seongwoo looks ready to murder the assaulter. “It’s been long! Come, come, my office is not here.”

“Who’s this, Dr. Park?” The Major demands.

“Guests of mine, sir. I’ll show them out, they just got into the wrong building!” The doctor lets his boyfriend go, turning to beam at the soldiers. He grabs both of them by the elbow and begins to haul them towards the exit. Jonghyun resist the urge to shrug him off and moves along with him. Strangely, the soldiers let them pass without another word, although there are plenty of suspicious glances and glares. They are out of the building before Dr. Park opens his mouth again. “This is about Henry Lau, isn’t it?” Seongwoo refuses to answer. “”I thought so. I knew he wanted help but I didn’t think he’ll contact _you,_ Mr. Ong.”

Jonghyun grimances. He’s going to fling the idiot into the minefield once this is over.

“Oh, don’t worry. I know who you really are. I’m never off your website. Thought you’d be wearing the hat, though.” Dr. Park lets go of them, turning to Jonghyun with a friendly grin. “I hardly recognise him without the hat!”

Jonghyun stares blankly at him before his brain supplies him with images of the headlines Seongwoo made - he was wearing a black fedora in most of the pictures. Minhyun and Jaehwan didn’t stop laughing about it for weeks.

“It wasn’t _my_ hat.” Seongwoo complains, before focusing back onto the situation. “You know Henry Lau?”

“Well, I knew his dad better. He had all sorts of mad theories about this place. Still, he was a good friend.” Something passes over Dr. Park’s eyes, before it fades. Jonghyun senses eyes on his back and turns his head slightly to see the Major staring at the three of them in the car mirror. Dr. Park seems to realise as well and hands his card over. “Can’t talk now, got to work to feed the children!”

“I’ll be in touch.” Seongwoo holds up the card, and the doctor nods before jogging back up the steps to get into the building. Jonghyun opens the driver’s seat and moves into the car. Seongwoo knocks on the glass and he rolls down the window.

“Shouldn’t I drive?” He asks. Jonghyun doesn’t spare him a glance.

“You have five seconds to get in before I drop you off at the minefield.” He bites off every word, and Seongwoo opens the door at the back immediately.

**Idiot [15:46]**

**We can take care of ourselves.**

**Fox [15:48]**

**Jonghyun, yes. You, not really.**

Seongwoo slams the door shut behind him, and Jonghyun (along with the rest of the pub) looks up from his book. He looks frightened as he walks towards his table - are those tears in his eyes? He slams the book shut at once and reaches out to support his boyfriend.

“I brought Henry to the Hollow to draw the beast out.” Seongwoo is _shaking._ “We saw it, Jong. Look at me. I’m afraid, _afraid._ I’ve always been able to keep my feelings distant - I divorced myself from _feeling_ but you see…” He holds up a hand, and Jonghyun takes a look at it. His hand is shaking very badly. “... my body’s betraying me.”

Jonghyun takes the hand, intertwining his fingers with his.

“Breathe.” He commands, brushing Seongwoo’s hair and leading him to sit on the chair he previously occupied. “Breathe, okay? Don’t get worked up just yet, it’s nighttime and this place is creepy as hell-”

“Are you doubting me?” Seongwoo looks up, eyes almost feral. He wrenches away from him and Jonghyun sighs tiredly, going to sit down opposite. “I’ll prove it to you.”

“You’re not okay, Seong. You’ve been spooked, you’re not mentally sound-”

“I AM FINE!” Seongwoo roars, and the entire pub turns to look at them. Sanggyun leans over the bar to give them a disapproving stare. Jonghyun smiles apologetically at everyone as Seongwoo collects himself. “We’re looking for a dog, yes?” His partner points at a woman across the room. “She’s got a West Highland terrier called Whisky. Not exactly what we’re looking for.”

“Seongwoo.” He says.

“Look at the jumper he’s wearing. Hardly worn. Clearly he’s uncomfortable in it. Maybe it’s because of the material; more likely the hideous pattern, suggesting it’s a present, probably one for Christmas. So he wants into his mother’s good books. Why? Almost certainly money.” Seongwoo begins his analysis. Once upon a time, Jonghyun found it impossibly attractive but now it just annoys him. He wants to talk, not watch him dissect the entire town in five minutes. “He’s treating her to a meal but his own portion is small. That means he wants to impress her, but he’s trying to economise on his own food.”

“Maybe he’s not hungry-”

“No, small plate. Starter. He’s practically licked it clean. She’s nearly finished her pavlova. If she’d treated him, he’d have had as much as he wanted. He’s hungry all right, and not well-off – you can tell that by the state of his cuffs and shoes.” Seongwoo begins to sound frantic. “I know she’s his mother because - who else would give him a Christmas present like that? Well, it could be an aunt or an elder sister, but mother’s more likely. Now, he was a fisherman. Scarring pattern on his hands, very distinctive – fish hooks. They’re all quite old now, which suggests he’s been unemployed for some time. Not much industry in this part of the world, so he’s turned to his widowed mother for help. Widowed? Yes, obviously. She’s got a man’s wedding ring on a chain round her neck – clearly her late husband’s and too big for her finger. She’s well-dressed but her jewellery’s cheap. She could afford better, but she’s kept it – it’s sentimental. Now, the dog-” He’s hardly pausing for breath, almost desperate to finish his analysis, to prove that he’s ‘fine’. Jonghyun sits forward in worry. His behaviour’s telling. He’s not just scared, he’s terrified, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. “-tiny little hairs all over the leg from where it gets a little bit too friendly, but no hairs above the knees, suggesting it’s a small dog, probably a terrier. In fact it is – a West Highland terrier called Whisky. ‘How the hell do you know that, Seong?’ She was on the same train as us and I heard her calling its name and that’s not cheating, that’s listening. I use my senses, Jonghyun, unlike some people, so you see, I am fine, in fact I’ve never been better, so just Leave. Me. _Alone.”_

Jonghyun sits back. Seongwoo’s behaviour is an utter _nuisance._ He’s _not_ hurt.

“Okay.” He blinks. The look in his partner’s eyes is the darkest he’s seen in awhile. “Can’t you listen to me, just for a bit? I love-”

“Well, I _don’t.”_ Seongwoo knocks the book off the table and stands up. The chair screeches over the floor and bumps into the woman behind. She glances up with an annoyed expression on her face, realises the situation, and wisely decides to keep her mouth shut. Seongwoo glares at him once more, picks up the book and tosses it onto the table before storming away.

Jonghyun bites his lip, and someone pulls the chair in and settles into it.

“What’s wrong, mate? Lovers’ quarrel?” Sanggyun asks, voice drowned in sympathy.

“Yeah.” He blinks after the image of Seongwoo’s back. “Lovers’... quarrel.”

 

They are sleeping side-by-side, back-to-back in the bed. Not sleeping, really. Jonghyun is curled away from Seongwoo, eyes open as he goes through ten ways to knock a man twice his size out. Damnit, he can’t sleep.

“Are you sleeping?” Seongwoo breathes. Against his will, Jonghyun turns to face him to realise that he’s already looking at him.

“No.” He says.

“Do you want to count guns?” Seongwoo asks hopefully. He rolls his eyes and makes to turn back to his side of the bed. He hears a breath hitch, and a hand darts out beneath the blankets to stop him. “Wait, Jong.”

“I believe you addressed me as Jonghyun tonight, Seongwoo-ssi.” He’s petty. He can’t help it.

“What happened last night... Something happened to me; something I’ve not really experienced before…”

“Doubt.” Jonghyun closes his eyes, refusing to look at his partner’s face, white and pleading. “Ong Seongwoo believes in himself before anyone else. I know you.”

Seongwoo shifts closer to him.

“Of course you do.” A hand touches his face. “I meant what I said, Jong. I don’t love-” He opens his eyes. “I just care. For two… people.”

“Caring is a disadvantage.” Jonghyun looks at Seongwoo.

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. Caring isn’t enough for you, but it’s all I have.” Seongwoo begs. “I’m… sorry. For not… being more for you.” Jonghyun shakes his head and sits up.

“I never _asked_ for anything.” He scrubs at his face, then swings his legs over the bed to grab his wallet and handphone. “Good night, Seongwoo-ssi.”

“Where are you going?” Seongwoo props himself up, looking astonished.

“Home.” He snarls, and shuts the door.

**MINHYUN**

“Let him go.” Minhyun orders, and the men at the door look horrified at the command. He’s standing along the glass window of the first observation room, tapping his feet and remembering the last text sent to him.

**Turtle [02:09]**

**Seongwoo’s being a dick.**

**I’m coming home, you better be there when I walk through the door.**

“Sir, he’s highly dangerous.” One steps forward, and he studies his nametag. _Park Woojin._

“Are you doubting my command, Officer?” He asks evenly, watching the prisoner in his cell. He has his eyes closed and is breathing evenly, too quick to be asleep. He’s meditating. Officer Park tightens his jaw and mentions for the men to open his cell, and Minhyun times his entrance into the compound just as the prisoner is led, slumped against two officers, away.

The cell has been kept in tip top condition, clean and not affected. So, his prisoner hasn’t had any violent tendencies - once, they had to refurbish the entire place after an inmate tore the stuffing from the walls with his teeth. Everything seems fine, and even the chair bolted to the floor hasn’t been touched.

Unfortunately, he _knows_ his prisoner. Minhyun steps closer to the wall and inspects the light scratches against the leather. They seem to be random; but it’s a collection of letters, spelled out carefully. He glances over to the one-way mirror, hesitating. The letters have been carved into the glass, which means the prisoner used his fingernails. He flinches at the sudden image of fingernails dragging along glass, and shakes himself. The letters on the mirror are somehow similar, as if they have been laterally inverted.

Minhyun opens his mouth in realization, slams open the door to the cell and moves quickly to the second observation room. And there it is - the name:

_SEONGWOO_


	4. the reichenbach fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting one day earlier bc i'm busy tmr
> 
> tw: character death
> 
> \+ thank you to em (@jisungverse) & cat (@zhujungjungting) for proof reading & editing!

**FOUR: THE REICHENBACH FALL**

**THREE MONTHS LATER**

**SEONGWOO**

“A ‘consulting criminal’.” The prosecuting barrister says in disbelief. He tries very hard not to stick his tongue out at the woman. They are at Kwon Hyunbin’s trial, since he conveniently chose _Seongwoo’s birthday_ to steal jewels from the ancient vault of Emperor Yi Cheok.

“Yes.” He says precisely, watching his enemy smile lazily at him across the room.

“Your words. Can you expand on that answer?” The woman looks down at her notes and back up at him, clearly waiting for an answer.

“Kwon Hyunbin is for hire.” He replies, short and sweet. Jonghyun would be proud. Speaking of him, he hasn’t seen him in three months. The distance is starting to get to him.

“Would you describe him as…”

“Leading.” He interrupts, looking around the room. Minhyun _should_ be here, which means Jonghyun must be around. The two of them live in one of the government provided apartments now, since Jonghyun ditched him halfway through a case and disappeared back to Seoul.

“What?” The barrister asks in shock.  

“Can’t do that. You’re leading the witness. He’ll object and the judge will uphold.” Seongwoo provides her with the relevant information. The book he read about criminal law _is_ coming in handy after all. Judge Yoon looks exasperated where he is sitting, hand coming to brush at his nose bridge. Hm. A little more teasing and he’ll go right off.

“Mr. Ong.” The judge warns, and Seongwoo chooses to ignore him.

“Ask me how. How would I describe him? What opinion have I formed of him? Do they not teach you this?” He rattles off, enjoying the look on the barrister’s face as she flounders to regain her dignity.  

“Mr. Ong, we’re fine without your help.” Judge Yoon complains. The woman seems to have regained her composure. “How would you describe this man – his character?”

“First mistake.” Seongwoo glances back at Hyunbin, who’s _still_ chewing the strawberry gum. Hyunbin tilts his head as they lock gazes, eyes hooded.  “Kwon Hyunbin isn’t a man at all – he’s a spider; a spider at the centre of a web – a criminal web with a thousand threads and he knows precisely how each and every single one of them dances.”

Hyunbin tilts his head forward slightly in recognition, eyes dancing with mirth.

“And how long-”

“No, no, don’t - don’t do that.” He shuts his eyes and pinches his nose bridge in frustration. “That’s really not a good question.”

 _“Mr. Ong.”_ Judge Yoon slams his hand on the table, an extraordinary sign of his loss of control. Interesting.

“How long have I known him? Not really your best line of inquiry. We met twice, five minutes in total. I pulled a gun; he tried to blow me up.” Seongwoo recounts, and Hyunbin wriggles his eyebrows at him, throwing him a greasy wink. “I felt we had a special something.”

“Mr. Ong,  are you seriously claiming this man is an expert, after knowing the accused for just five minutes?” Judge Yoon inquires, face turning a little red.

“Two minutes would have made me an expert. Five was ample.” Seongwoo’s eyes go straight to the door as someone enters. The person is small and entirely in black. His heart leaps for a moment, until the visitor sits down and removes his hood. Not. Jonghyun.

“That’s a matter for the jury.” Judge Yoon ends his sentence, and he returns his gaze to the front.

“Oh, really?” He snaps, the twinge of disappointment still smarting. He glances towards the jury box, dissecting the people sitting there. “One librarian; two teachers; two high-pressured jobs, probably the CBD.” He observes the woman sitting at the far left of the front row. She has a notebook resting on the ledge in front of her and is writing in shorthand. Easy. “The foreman’s a medical secretary, trained abroad judging by her shorthand.”

 _“Mr. Ong.”_ Judge Yoon warns again, but he’s on a roll.

“Seven are married and two are having an affair – with each other, it would seem! Oh, and they’ve just had tea and biscuits.” Seongwoo turns back to the judge. “Would you like to know who ate the wafer?”

“Mr. Ong. You’ve been called here to answer the prosecuting barrister questions, not to give us a display of your intellectual prowess.” The judge leans forward in his chair, keeping his eyes fixed on his all the time. “Keep your answers brief and to the point. Anything else will be treated as contempt.”

Seongwoo exchanges a tired look with Hyunbin, who grins in sympathy, showing off all his pearly white teeth.

“Do you think you could survive for just a few minutes without showing off?” Judge Yoon demands, and he raises his eyes to the sky before looking back at the judge.

“Nope.”

 

Minhyun’s signing the release form for him.

Seongwoo tucks his hand into his and holds on tightly as he leads the both of them to the car. The atmosphere is cold, and he’s disappointed again when Jonghyun is nowhere to be seen in the backseat.

“Where is he?” He looks under his seat. “Did he lock himself in the boot?”

“What did I say?” Minhyun explodes, gunning the engine. It’s a nice car, really. “I said: ‘Seongwoo, don’t be clever.’ And what did you do?”

“I can’t just turn it on and off like a _tap.”_ He leans back in his seat. Ooh, leather. There are no markings on the seat, and the seat has never been sat on, from the resistance it offers him. Yet the outside of the car is scratched already, which means Minhyun’s had to have this car for at least a month before he’ll scratch it. Jonghyun’s either never sat in this car, or he’s not around. “Hyunbin’s not mounting any defense. There’s something going on. If he wanted the jewels he’d have them easily.”

“I know, Seongwoo.” Minhyun tosses him the pack of Skittles tucked in the dashboard. Huh. He remembered, even after three months of separation. He’s still got hope. “Just because I haven’t played in sixteen years doesn’t mean this brain’s gone dead.” Seongwoo hums. “They announced him not guilty.”

“What?” He drops the phone he is holding in his hand. “Are you fucking kidding?”

“No, I am not,” Minhyun scrunches his face up in distaste, “fucking kidding.”

“Drop me off at our place.” He orders, and Minhyun goes quiet suddenly. “Oh, right. My place, then.”

His boyfriend (ex?) drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

“Look, can’t you make up with him?” He complains. “I miss you too, but Jonghyun has emotional needs that are stronger than yours.”

“Of course he does, he’s a different kind of genius from us.” Seongwoo crosses his legs. “I tried, okay? He walked out on me halfway.”

“Yeah, well.” Minhyun turns into the street, braking once they arrive at the house. “Out. This fight is getting ridiculous. Fix. It.”

“You’re the one who’s supposed to know how to be sorry, can’t you give me a clue?” Seongwoo smiles at him, and Minhyun slaps him. His head jerks to the side, and he brings his palm to it in shock. “That’s less than a fraction of the pain Jonghyun’s in.” Minhyun says flatly. “Out. And don’t die.”

 

Once he’s in the house, he picks up his violin.

He hasn’t played Bach in a while, so he closes his eyes and brings the music sheets to the front of his mind. With uncertain fingers, he begins to play.

He snaps out of his daze as he hears the door knob of the front door turn, although he continues to play the same piece over and over again. When the door to his living room creaks open, he pauses his hand on the violin but doesn’t turn.

“Most people knock.” He says mildly. “But then, you are not most people, I suppose.” He tosses the bow onto Minhyun’s couch and sets the violin down. “Kettle’s just boiled, if you want.”

“Johann Sebastian would be appalled.” Hyunbin says crisply, striding forward on his long legs. From the mirror, he can see him choose a blood red apple from the food platter. “May I have a seat?”

Seongwoo turns around then, gesturing to Jonghyun’s rocking chair. Hyunbin gives a little smile and sits down in Seongwoo’s armchair instead. Seongwoo’s jaw clenches slightly, and he begins to pour the tea into the cups.

“You’re honestly a little bit pleased with the verdict.” Hyunbin predicts, taking the delicate china and bringing it to his lips. His fingers drum rhythmically on the armrest.  “Every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain.” Seongwoo makes a vague humming noise and adds milk to his cup as Hyunbin takes a long sip. “You need me, or you’re nothing. Because we’re just alike, you and I – except you’re boring.”

Very briefly, Seongwoo remembers a similar conversation with two other people, here in the same spot. Opposite him, Hyunbin shakes his head in disappointment.  
“You’re on the side of the angels.” He clucks his tongue, and Seongwoo brings the teacup to his mouth.

“Got to the jury, of course.” He says softly.

“I got into the ancient vaults; you think I can’t worm my way into twelve hotel rooms?” His enemy grins widely at him, setting his teacup back into the saucer and producing a knife. Very carefully, he begins to peel the apple.

“Cable network." Seongwoo murmurs.

“Every hotel bedroom has a personalised TV screen and every person has their pressure point; someone that they want to protect from harm.” Hyunbin flicks his wrist, and curls of red apple peel descend to the floor on top of Jonghyun’s favourite rug. Seongwoo tightens his jaw again. “Easy peasy. How hard do you find saying you don’t know, Mr. Ong?”

“I dunno.” He says in the Incheon dialect. Hyunbin beams, carving out a piece of apple and putting it into his mouth.

“Clever.” He praises. “Tell me why I’m doing this.”

“You don’t need to, you have the code to do anything.” Seongwoo muses.

“I can open any door anywhere with a few tiny lines of computer code. No such thing as a private bank account now – they’re all mine. No such thing as secrecy – I own secrecy. Nuclear codes – I could blow up NATO in alphabetical order. In a world with locked rooms, the man with the key is king; and honey, you should see me in a crown.” Hyunbin crunches away at his apple. The sound is distracting.

“You were advertising all the way through the trial. You were showing the world what you can do.” Seongwoo adds.

“And you were helping. Big client list: rogue governments, intelligence communities... terrorist cells. They all want me.” Hyunbin stabs another chunk of apple with surprising ferocity and bites it off the penknife. “Suddenly, I’m Mr. Sex. And it’s not just because of my face!"

Seongwoo laughs, because Hyunbin _is_ handsome. He’s probably the most handsome person he’s ever met who’s not an actor. “If you could break any bank, why do you care about the highest bidder?”   
“I don’t. I just like to watch them all competing. ‘Daddy loves me the best!’ Aren’t ordinary people adorable?” Hyunbin rolls the apple in his hand, sitting forward slightly to take the teacup again.   
“Why are you doing all of this?” He interrogates, and his hand pauses.

“I want to solve the problem – _our_ problem; the final problem.” Hyunbin puts the teacup down, lowering his head. “It’s gonna start very soon, Seongwoo: the fall.” He raises his head and whistles a slowly descending note while simultaneously lowering his gaze towards the floor, then makes a low crashing noise. “But don’t be scared. Falling’s just like flying, except there’s a more _permanent_ destination.” He laughs crudely, sitting back in his seat. As he turns the apple in his hand, his fingernails make light crescents in the fruit. Seongwoo watches stonily as Hyunbin relaxes his grip, allowing the apple to hit the floor with a gentle thud.

“I don’t like riddles.” He snaps. The apple rolls under the couch, disappearing.

“Learn to. Because I owe you a fall, Seongwoo. I... owe... you.” Hyunbin rises from his seat, then walks away calmly. Seongwoo remains seated until he hears the door click closed, then scrambles on his knees to get to the apple.

There’s a large hole carved out of it, with a singular incision on the left and a curved one on the right. The indentations form three letters: **I O U**

**MINHYUN**

When he gets home, he closes the door as softly as he can and places the pistol carefully on the shoe rack. He’s pretty sure it’s around three in the morning, although the light in the study room is still turned on.

Moving quickly, he kicks off his shoes and removes his socks. The light in the study room is flickering - candles. Either Jonghyun has a favour to ask or he’s getting lucky tonight. But knowing his partner’s mood for the past three months… not likely.

Jonghyun has his legs crossed and is fully dressed, stress lines clear on his face.

“Good morning.” He says, without looking up at him as he enters. “I have news.”

“Shoot.” Minhyun gestures, then realises what he just said. “Not me, of course.”

Jonghyun’s not in the mood to play. He hands him a manila folder with four photographs in it.  “Recognise them?” He asks. “They’re all contract killers.”

“And you know this, how?” Minhyun raises an eyebrow, flipping through the pictures. He’s right, though. They are all wanted on Interpol. “Why did you give me this?”

“All four of them have occupied the houses near our- Seongwoo’s place.” Jonghyun stumbles over his words. “It’s not hard to guess the common denominator, is it?”

“You think it’s Hyunbin.” Minhyun sets the folder on the table. “Why don’t you talk to Seongwoo if you’re so concerned about him?”

Jonghyun drums his fingers on the table and looks away into the grain of the wooden table. Minhyun makes a move to leave.

“We both know what’s coming, Min.” He murmurs under his breath. Minhyun stops and turns back, struggling to control his anger. “Moriarty is obsessed. He’s sworn to destroy his only rival.

“So you want me to watch out for your boyfriend because he won’t accept your help.” He snaps, exasperated. Jonghyun finally looks up from the table to smile tiredly at him.

“To be fair, he’s your boyfriend too.” Jonghyun drums his fingers on the table. “It’s not my fault he’s a born asshole.”

“To be fair, when he was younger-" Minhyun steps forward to pull his boyfriend up, holding him loosely. “He wanted to be a pirate.”

 

The driver drops him off at Seongwoo’s house.

He reaches into his wallet for the key he keeps normally, and opens the front door, fully expecting Seongwoo to be passed out on his couch. Instead, he finds Jaehwan and a couple of his officers in the room along with his boyfriend.

“What’s going on?” He asks, turning to Seongwoo with an accusatory glare. “What did you do this time?”

“Kidnapping.” Seongwoo goes to the dining table, turns on the laptop, and begins to type furiously into it. Minhyun watches him work wordlessly, then looks to Jaehwan for an explanation.

“Victor Cha, the ambassador to the U.S.” Jaehwan clarifies, and Minhyun cuts him off.

“He’s in Washington, what are you talking about?” He demands, whipping out his phone to check is he’s been sent any red alerts. No sign.

“Not him – his children, Max and Claudette, age seven and nine.” Jaehwan sighs, pulling out a chair to sit down in it, pausing when he sees the remainders of what looks like a packed lunch from a week ago on it. “Oh- Jesus! _Seongwoo.”_

Jaehwan turns to him with a despairing look and he clenches his fists. The house looks like a mess, and he’s trying to resist the urge to disinfect everything.

“They’re at Minjok Leadership Academy, three hours’ drive east of Seoul.” An officer adds helpfully when it becomes clear that no one is stopping Seongwoo. “The school broke up; all the other boarders went home– just a few kids remained, including those two.”  

“The kids have vanished.” Jaehwan tells the unresponsive consulting detective. “The ambassador’s asked for you personally.”

Seongwoo is already on his feet, marching towards the door with his coat folded over one arm. Minhyun sighs and calls for his driver. He needs to tell Seongwoo about the assassins nearby.  Jaehwan clucks his tongue as they put on their shoes, commenting, as usual, on Seongwoo’s odd behavior. Funny, he should be used to it by now. The drive there is spent in silence, with Seongwoo sitting at the back. Minhyun retrieves his laptop and types away at the documents he needs to sign; he’s recently been promoted two ranks to Lieutenant General. The North Koreans are stirring up trouble again, so he ignores Seongwoo in the back seat and thinks up of ways to diplomatically decrease the tension.

The task lets him spend his three hours quickly, broken only when Seongwoo leaps out of the car and moves quickly towards a woman sobbing on the steps of the school. Minhyun sighs and saves his work, then shuts his laptop and gets out of the car to look after him.

“Ms. Lee, House Mistress. Go easy.” Jaehwan keeps up with their long strides, chattering off a bunch of information. Minhyun stays back and lets Seongwoo walk over to the woman on his own.

“Ms. Lee, you’re in charge of pupil welfare, yet you left this place wide open last night!” Seongwoo roars into her face, and Minhyun casts his eyes to the sky. He makes a small prayer for him to control himself from throttling his partner. “What are you? An idiot, a drunk or a criminal?” Seongwoo yanks the shock blanket from her shoulders and flings it onto the floor. “Now quickly, _tell me!”_

Ms. Lee turns even whiter and begins to tremble. “All the doors and windows were properly bolted. No-one– not even me- went into their room last night. You have to believe me!” She cries out.

Beside him, Jaehwan lowers his face into his hand. Seongwoo’s voice changes, and a smile appears gently across his face. Minhyun believes that he is trying to channel The Smile, but he’s no Jonghyun. Ms. Lee continues to gawk at them in horror.

“I do. I just wanted you to speak quickly.” Seongwoo smiles unapologetically, turning to Jaehwan and gesturing to the woman. “Ms. Lee will need to breathe into a bag now.”

“You’re such a-” Jaehwan cuts himself off from cursing at the crime scene and shakes a warning finger at him. Minhyun snorts, and Seongwoo glances sharply at him, as if first seeing him after the past three hours.

“You’ll do.” He mutters under his breath, hooking their elbows together and marching the both of them towards the direction of the dormitories. Jaehwan follows quickly behind, pointing them to where the brother slept.

The room is huge and filled with spy books, with a heavy trunk sitting at the foot of the bed. Seongwoo pulls open the lid with his gloves on, poking around in it for clues. Minhyun’s eyes go to the bedside table, where there is a candle burnt nearly to its stump. The door has a frosted glass pane.

“The boy sleeps there every night, gazing at the only light source outside in the corridor. He’d recognise every shape, every outline, the silhouette of everyone who came to the door. Maybe someone approaches the door who he doesn’t recognise, an intruder. Maybe he can even see the outline of a weapon.” He muses, pulling open the door again and turning off the lights in the room before closing the door after him. He’s quite certain he makes a shadow.

“What would he do in the precious few seconds before they came into the room? How would he use them if not to cry out?” Seongwoo is saying as he steps back into the room. He’s begun to sniff intensely around the room, tossing a cricket bat onto the bed and bending to his knees to search under it. Minhyun turns on the light switch, and Seongwoo retracts his hand to produce a bottle of linseed oil.

“Bingo.” He grins, telling Jaehwan to draw the shutters across and Minhyun to turn off the lights again. Seongwoo reaches into his bag to produce a UV torch, shining it around the room to reveal the words _HELP US_ written onto the wall the bed is against.

“Not much use. Doesn’t lead us to the kidnapper.” Jaehwan frowns. Or he thinks he’s frowning; he can’t see much in the darkness.

“Brilliant, Inspector.” Seongwoo sounds close to him.

“Really?” Jaehwan has a smile in his voice now.

“Yes. Brilliant impression of an idiot.” Seongwoo bites, shining the torch onto the floor. There are a series of footprints leading straight out of the door, and he goes to follow the source of light, stepping carefully over the prints so as to not disturb them. “The boy was made to walk in front of them.”

“On what, tiptoe?” Jaehwan holds open the door as they step out of the room. He punches a light switch in the corridor and the entire floor descends into darkness.

“Indicates anxiety, a gun was held to his head.” Minhyun speaks up from the back. “The girl was pulled beside him, dragged sideways. He had his left arm cradled about her neck.” The trail stops next to a window.

“That’s the end of it. We don’t know where they went from here.” Jaehwan comments. Seongwoo turns back to him, nodding before opening his mouth.

“Except his shoe size, his height, his gait, his walking pace…” He rolls his eyes at him, dropping to one knee in front of the window. “Do I have to continue? Minhyun, call your driver.”

Minhyun remains quiet, and Seongwoo turns to look at him in confusion.

“Ah.” He says under his breath. “Minhyun, please call your driver.”

“That’s better.” He replies, sending a text out. Seongwoo tears down the blackout material that has been stuck across the window and clicks the torch off, slipping it into his backpack and taking out a small Petri dish to get samples. He works in silence, and Minhyun gazes at his back, thoughts miles away.

“Having fun?” He inquires when Seongwoo stands, grinning.

“Starting to.” His boyfriend holds on tightly to the dishes and marches to the door.

“Maybe don’t do the smiling.” He advises, following beside him. Seongwoo turns to look at him with confusion, and he sighs again. “Kidnapped. Children.” He enunciates each word carefully, pointing to the House Mistress, still weeping. “Manners, Seongwoo.”

“Ah.” He murmurs, shaking his head and opening the door so he can get in. “Forgot, sorry.”

**SEONGWOO**

Minhyun drops him off at the hospital.

He buys two packets of chips at the cafeteria and meets his favourite intern at the corridor.

“Hyung-" Guanlin protests as he grabs him by the elbow and hauls him along. “-I have a lunch date with Jihoon.”

“Tell him to buy lunch and meet us at the lab.” He instructs, pulling open the door. Guanlin pouts and removes his scarf, pulling the lab coat on. Seongwoo hangs his red coat on the coat hanger and prepares himself, opening his bag to show his intern the samples. “Need your help. It’s one of your old boyfriends’ – we’re trying to track him down. He’s been a bit naughty!”

“Hyunbin?” Guanlin asks faintly, putting on latex gloves and prepping the microscope. “He wasn’t my boyfriend. We went out three times. I ended it.”

“Yes, and then he broke into the ancient vaults and stole half of royal jewels. For the sake of law and order, I suggest you avoid all future attempts at a relationship, Guanjin.” He snaps. Guanlin sighs, going over the counter to get the testing set.

“It’s Guanlin.” He corrects. Seongwoo hums and someone opens the door. From the influx of honey and vanilla cologne, he assumes it’s Jihoon.

“Hey, hyung. Just dropping off lunch.” He calls, putting two bags of something on the table. “Lin, I’ll come round later for dinner.” His intern murmurs a reply.

 

Later, he’s identified all but one of the samples. The last one is a glycerol molecule of some sort, and he struggles to place it.

“What are you?” He murmurs under his breath.

“What did you mean, “I owe you”?” Guanlin questions from the other side of the counter. He’s removed his latex gloves to stare at him. Seongwoo meets his eyes over the microscope. “You said, “I owe you.” You were muttering it while you were working.”  
Seongwoo bends his head down to look at the sample again. “Nothing. Mental note.”   
“You’re a bit like my dad. He’s dead.” He stops short, hissing under his breath. “No - sorry.”   
"Guanlin, please don’t feel the need to make conversation. It’s really not your area.” He says wryly.

“When he was... dying, he was always cheerful; he was lovely – except when he thought no-one could see. I saw him once. He looked sad.” Guanlin continues, opening the dustbin and throwing his gloves into it.

"Guanlin.” He warns.

"You’ve been looking more upset since Jonghyun-hyung left.” The intern rambles on. Seongwoo raises his eyes from the microscope and looks away from Guanlin to stare into the computer screen. Glycerol molecule. Glycerol molecule glycerol molecule glycerol molecule glycerol molecule- “Hyung. Are you okay?” He opens his mouth. He knows how to handle pesky questions, but the boy interrupts him before he can say anything. “And don’t just say you are, because I know what that means, looking sad when you think no-one can see you.”

“But you can see me.” He breaks, hissing at the burst of emotion. Guanlin smiles sadly at him, as if he pities him. 

"I don’t count.” He says simply. Seongwoo looks at him, seeing the awkward transfer intern he used to be. He’s grown. He looks to the tag on his coat. God, he isn’t even an intern anymore. He’s a researcher.  
“What I’m trying to say is that, if there’s anything I can do, anything you need, anything at all, you can have me.” Guanlin flinches at his words. “No, I just mean - I mean if there’s anything you need-” He sighs and stops talking for a moment, looking down at the table and running his hands over the black surface. “-It’s fine.” 

He turns away. Seongwoo realises that he’s trembling slightly. Emotion. “What-what-what could I need from you?”

Guanlin removes his coat and picks up his lunch. It’s a sandwich. “Nothing.” He shrugs. “I dunno. You could probably say thank you, actually.” He nods firmly and bites into the sandwich, looking at him with wary eyes. Seongwoo blinks twice, trying to quell the rush of emotions inside him.

“Thank you.” He says softly, hesitantly. Guanlin stops chewing for a moment and smiles a gummy smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he opens the text to see a picture of a book. Clicking open the picture, he sees a book titled ‘Grimms’ Fairy Tales’ and a handful of brown dust. He checks the next message.

**Jaehwan [12:27]**

**Breadcrumbs.**

“Guanlin, what do you think of this?” He asks, and the researcher rounds the bench to take a look at his phone.

“Hansel and Gretel.” The man asks.

“Two children led into the forest by a wicked father follow a little trail of breadcrumbs.” Seongwoo recounts from his grandmother’s stories.

“What sort of kidnapper leaves clues?” Guanlin wonders.

“The sort that likes to boast; the sort that thinks it’s all a game. He sat in my chair and he said these exact words to me: Every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain.” He looks down at the sample and back at the computer screen. “The fifth substance: it’s part of the tale.  The witch’s house.”

“What?”

“The glycerol molecule - PGPR! It’s used in making chocolate.” He informs his ex student, removing his gloves and throwing them into the bin. “Help me clean up, will you? I have to see the Inspector.”

 

Jaehwan hands him a fax that comes in once he entered through the doorway.

**HURRY UP**

**THEY’RE**

**DYING**

He growls and crumples it up in his hands, knocking everything off the table and unfolding a map of Seoul.

“What have you got for us?” Jaehwan asks.  
“Need to find a place in the city where all five of these things intersect.” He hands over the lab report with the identified samples. 

“Chalk, asphalt, brick dust, vegetation - what the hell is this? Chocolate?” Jaehwan reads the list off, and Seongwoo takes his phone out from the table to wait for the messages to come in.

"I think we’re looking for a disused sweets factory.” He prompts.

“We need to narrow that down. A sweet factory with asphalt?” Jaehwan hits the red button on the bottom of the table and officers stream in through the doors, staring in shock at him.

“No. No-no-no. Too general. Need something more specific. Chalk; chalky clay – that’s a far thinner band of geology.” He scrambles to find a place, skimming through hundreds of districts in his head. He needs an industrial area. 

“Brick dust?” An officer asks.

“Building site. Bricks from the 1950s.” He answers quickly.

“There’s thousands of building sites in Seoul.” Minhyun notes, having turned up to watch him.

 _“I’ve_ got people out looking.” He snaps, grinning when the messages start coming in. 

"So have I.” Jaehwan protests, seemingly hurt at the barb.

“Homeless network – faster than the police.” He smiles snidely. “Far more relaxed about taking bribes.” Bending over the map again, he flicks through the pictures sent to his phone before arriving at a conclusion. “Here.” He announces, then passes the map to Minhyun and brisk walks to his car.

“Come on!” Jaehwan shouts to his colleagues, and they follow him right out of the door.

 

They find the kids easily, but Minhyun calls an ambulance upon inspection of the sweets wrappers. The inside of the wrappers have been painted with mercury, and judging by the number of wrappers on the floor, the kids ate quite a large dose.

“You want to talk to the girl?” Jaehwan asks him, and he nods, opening the tent and stepping in to meet him. A female officer going by the name of Yoojung is wrapping a blanket around her and patting her hair as he comes in.

“I’ll take it from here.” Seongwoo says authoritatively, and the girl glances up at him.

“NO!” The kid howls, curling into the female officer. He rears back, startled at the violent response. Jaehwan yanks down the zip of the door of the tent and peers in, astonished at the noise.

“Out!” He brings his hand down on his shoulder and bundles him out of the place, and the girl’s screams quiet to little sobs. “What did you _do?”_

“I didn’t-” He stops himself and looks at the wall next to the building the kids were found in. Painted in red are three letters: **I O U.**

“Kwon Hyunbin.” He whispers under his breath, calling for a taxi and ignoring Jaehwan’s calls for him to stop. He tells the driver his address and leans back into the plush leather seats, winding down the window to yell: “Inspector, I think I know who did this!” Jaehwan shakes his fist at him in fury as the driver backs up the driveway, and he takes out his phone to see a message from Jonghyun.

**Turtle [14:30]**

**We need to talk.**

**Let’s have dinner.**

He drops the phone, startled when the TV screen in the car flickers on and watches in horror as the static clears to reveal a very handsome, very familiar face.

“Hello!” Hyunbin smiles bashfully into the camera. “Are you ready to hear the story? This is the story of Sir Boast-A-Lot.”

Seongwoo sits forward. Behind the storyteller is a CG screen, one that is showing a blue sky with some white clouds hovering above him.

“Sir Boast-A-Lot was the bravest and cleverest knight at the Round Table, but soon the other knights began to grow tired of his stories about how brave he was and how many dragons he’d slain-” Behind him, the pale blue sky gets darker and the white clouds become grey and threatening. “-And soon they began to wonder-” A flash of lightning strikes down at Hyunbin’s head. “-Are Sir Boast-a-lot’s stories even true?”

Seongwoo bites his lip.

“So one of the knights went to King Arthur and said, ‘I don’t _believe_ Sir Boast-a-lot’s stories. He’s just a big old liar who makes things up to make himself look good.’”  Hyunbin shares, shaking his head in anticipation of the coming trouble. “And then even the King began to wonder…”  He frowns, raising a finger to his mouth and gazing off to the side with a thoughtful look on his face. “But that wasn’t the end of Sir Boast-A-Lot’s problem. _No.”_ Hyunbin looks down for a moment, as if pausing to read a script unseen from the camera’s perspective, then raises his eyes to the camera again. “That wasn’t the _final_ problem.”

Seongwoo bares his teeth at the screen as the camera pulls back to show Jim sitting with a storybook held in his hands. He looks up at the camera and finishes in an even more sing-song voice.

“The End.” He sings, winking conspiratorially as a red curtain comes down to cover the screen. The entire video glitches again, then the TV screen switches itself off with a mild exploding noise. Seongwoo leaps out of the cab, yelling at the driver to stop.

“What _was_ that?” He bangs on the window of the driver’s seat. The driver winds down the window, removing his cap to show a grinning face.

“No charge.” Hyunbin sings in the same voice before hitting the accelerator. Seongwoo runs after him, yelling out loud in frustration when the cab disappears out of sight. He stops in the middle of the road, breathing heavily.

“Watch out!” A girl calls, tugging him to the pavement. Seongwoo spins, nearly elbowing her in the face and apologises, holding out his hand. The girl looks it at reluctantly, takes it, and drops dead as three bullets are fired at her immediately.

“SEONGWOO!” Someone shouts at him, and he looks up from the bleeding body to see Jaehwan step out of a police vehicle. He’s holding handcuffs and has both hands held out in front of him as if he’s approaching a criminal. “We know you made up Hyunbin. He’s been to the police station and he’s admitted to everything - including taking bribes from you. I need you to come with me-” Jaehwan freezes where he is when he sees the girl’s body, letting out a shout.

 _He’s going to arrest you._ His mind notifies him helpfully, and Seongwoo backs up, ducking into an alley when Jaehwan turns his head to call for help. _Good. Now, run._

 

Guanlin comes out of a small side room in a lab, switching off the lights and walks across the darkened lab, sighing tiredly. Seongwoo steps out from the shadows and leans against the door frame. The lights in the hallway flicker on and off.

“You’re wrong, you know.” He whispers. Guanlin gasps and jumps, spinning around towards him with an irritated glare. The look on his student’s face fades when he sees how bad he looks. He’s pretty sure he looks bad. The past twenty four hours have been hell. “You do count. You’ve always counted and I’ve always trusted you.” He steps closer, and somewhere in his mind it registers that he’s begging. “But you were right. I’m not okay.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.” Guanlin walks towards him quickly, catching him as his legs collapse from beneath him. He’s sweaty and tired and sure that he has a mild gastric flu. It hurts everywhere but most importantly his head hurts and is _numb._

“Guanlin, I think I’m going to die.” He whispers harshly.

“What do you need?” Guanlin asks, removing a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at his face. Seongwoo knows that this is cruel of him, asking something this big from the boy that’s had a crush on him for the past year. He grabs his wrist, trying to straighten his back. His legs have lost all the feeling in them. “I need-”

“-you.”

 

**To: UNKNOWN NUMBER**

**Come & play.**

**Bart’s Hospital Rooftop.**

**OSW.**

**P.S. Got something of yours you might want back.**

 

**MINHYUN**

He finds him in the lab.

Seongwoo is sitting on the floor, back against the cabinets and rolling a stress ball in his hands.

“What are you doing?” He asks, and his partner glances up at him.

“Thinking.” He says simply, just as a message from Jaehwan arrives to inform him that Seongwoo is now wanted at the police station for an interrogation. And he’s a suspect in the Cha case. Minhyun slides the phone back into his pocket, and Seongwoo bounces his stress ball.  The phone buzzes again, repeatedly. He removes it from his coat pocket.

It’s Jonghyun distress signal, and Seongwoo seems to hear his sharp inhale.

“What happened?” He questions, and Minhyun types in the code to see where his boyfriend is.

“Jonghyun’s in trouble. Let’s go.” He commands, striding back to the door and wrenching it open. He pauses when he hears no footsteps behind him, no burst of anxious questions, and turns. Seongwoo is still sitting on the floor. He calls out his name.

“You go. I’m busy.” He says, voice low and gravelly.

“Busy?” He echoes, shocked.

“Thinking. I need to think.” Seongwoo drops the stress ball and leans his head back against the cabinets.

“You need to-” Minhyun cuts himself off, surprised at the sudden rush of rage inside him. “Doesn’t he mean _anything_ to you? You were pining for months.”

“He walked out on me.” Seongwoo says flatly. Minhyun sputters for words, trying to piece together a sentence to convey his frustration.

“He may be dying-” He seizes a bag of something, possibly a sandwich, and hurls it in Seongwoo’s direction. “-you goddamn machine!” The bag hits Seongwoo’s head and drops beside him. His partner-no, definitely ex-looks at it and picks it up.

“Don’t you remember Redbeard?” He asks, shaking slightly. Seongwoo’s head snaps up at the sensitive questions.

 _“I am not a child.”_  He hisses.

“Fuck this shit.” Minhyun clenches his jaw. “You stay here if you want, on your own.”

“Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.” Seongwoo murmurs, and he snarls a last time, taking out his phone and identifying where Jonghyun is. Angrily, he slams the door shut behind him and runs down the corridor to find his boyfriend.

 

**FROM: UNKNOWN NUMBER**

**I’m waiting…**

**KHB**

 

**SEONGWOO**

_Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother_

_You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive_

“Ah. Here we are at last–you and me, Seongwoo, and our problem–the final problem.” Hyunbin grins from where he’s sitting on the edge of the building, holding the phone up higher. It’s blasting music, and very loudly. “Stayin’ alive! It’s so boring, isn’t it?”

As Seongwoo walks towards him, Hyunbin tosses the phone over the edge, watching it fall. He swing his legs back to the safe side and stands to welcome him.

“It’s just-” He holds his hand out flat with the palm down and skims it slowly through the air level to the roof. “-staying. All my life I’ve been searching for distractions. You were the best distraction and now I don’t even have you. Because I’ve _beaten_ you.” His voice is beginning to sound agitated.

Seongwoo comes to a stop before him.

“And you know what? In the end it was easy.” Hyunbin punches his fist into his open palm angrily, eyes dark. Seongwoo puts his hands behind his back, spreading his stance. “It was easy. Now I’ve got to go back to playing with the ordinary people. And it turns out you’re ordinary just like _all_ of them.”

Hyunbin lowers his head again and rubs his face before looking up at him.

“Ah, well.” His rival comes closer and begins to pace around him in a circle. “Did you almost start to wonder if I was real? Did I nearly get you?” Continuing to pace around him, he looks down to Seongwoo’s hands and sees that he is tapping out a rhythm with his fingers. “Good. You got that too.”

“Beats like digits.” Seongwoo recalls Hyunbin sitting in his chair and drinking from the teacup, fingers drumming quickly against the armrest. “Every beat is a one; every rest is a zero. Binary code. That’s why all those assassins killed the one that talked to me. It was hidden on me; hidden inside my head- a few simple lines of computer code that can break into any system.”

“I told all my clients: last one to Seongwoo is a sissy.” Hyunbin grins sadly.  

“That’s why there’s been so many assassins tracking me. But now that it’s up here, I can use it to alter all the records. I can prove you’re real.” Seongwoo says feverishly, starting to circle around Hyunbin as well. They circle against each other watchfully like boxers before a match. Except nothing is physical, it’s all up in their minds. Hyunbin gazes at him for a moment, then turns away with a disappointed look on his face.

“No, no, no, no, no, this is too easy.” He stops and sinks into a crouch on the floor. He hides his head in his hands, then suddenly springs to his feet and moves forward to stand closer to him. “There is no key, you _idiot!”_ He roars into his face. “Those digits are meaningless. They’re utterly meaningless.”

“What?” Seongwoo asks in confusion. Hyunbin shakes his head.

“You don’t really think a couple of lines of computer code are gonna crash the world around our ears? I’m disappointed.” Hyunbin walks even closer, until they are nose to nose. “I’m disappointed in you, boring Seongwoo.”

“But the rhythm-”

“‘Partita number one.’ Thank you, Johann Sebastian Bach.” Hyunbin senses his question before he can ask it. “Then how did I break into the vaults?” He spreads his arms wide, and Seongwoo starts to frown. “Daylight robbery. All it takes is some willing participants.”

“I knew you’d fall for it. That’s your weakness – you always want everything to be clever. Now, shall we finish the game? One final act.” Hyunbin steps away from him and gestures to the edge. “Glad you chose a tall building – nice way to do it.”

Seongwoo feels like he’s falling already, staring blankly off into the distance. His voice sounds confused again when he asks: “Do it? Do– do what?” He blinks to regain his composure, and- _suicide._ His brain supplies.” Yes, of course. My suicide.”

“‘Genius detective proved to be a fraud.’ I read it in the paper, so it must be true. I love newspapers. Fairytales.” Hyunbin sings in the stupid voice. Seongwoo moves closer to the edge of the building. “And pretty Grimm ones too.” He looks over the edge. Below, the traffic for the 9 o’clock rush hour has begun.

“I can still prove that you created an entirely false identity.” He thinks quickly. “Yes, I can.”

Hyunbin laughs, and the sound is so mirthful it doesn’t belong here. “Oh, just kill yourself. It’s a lot less effort.”

Seongwoo turns, grabs him by the collar of his coat with both hands and spins him around so that his back is to the drop. Hyunbin blinks slowly as he pushes him closer to the edge. His breathing has begun to grow short.

“You’re insane.” He breathes, and Hyunbin winks at him.

“You’re just getting that now?” Seongwoo shoves him further back, now holding him over the edge. He whoops almost triumphantly and gazes back at him with no fear in his eyes, holding his hands out wide and committing himself to Seongwoo’s grasp. “Okay, let me give you a little extra incentive.”

Seongwoo stops pushing him and freezes. Hyunbin spins out from his grasp easily and trips him, and he goes down on one knee.

“Your... _friends_ will die if you don’t.”  He sings, narrowing his eyes at him.

The fear that’s been residing in his heart starts to crystallise. “Jonghyun.” He realises, huffing and trying to straighten up on other foot.

“Not just Jonghyun.” Hyunbin whispers teasingly. _“Everyone.”_

**JONGHYUN**

Someone grabs his elbow and he spins, elbowing the person in the face.

“Ow, shit!” Minhyun grabs his nose, which has begun to bleed heavily. “Stop doing that! Are you okay?”

“Stop sneaking up on me!” He protests, taking out a piece of tissue paper from his pocket and handing it to his boyfriend. “I’m fine, just wanted to buy a book to read.”

“But- Your SOS signal went off.” Minhyun holds up his phone, pressing the tissue to his face. Jonghyun peers at it, confused, and takes out his own phone. The Messages app doesn’t have any record of him sending out any texts.

“I didn’t.” He shows him, and Minhyun pales so quickly he puts out a hand to steady him. “What? What’s wrong?”

Minhyun puts down the tissue.

“Seongwoo.” He seems to realise, and Jonghyun feels his heart leap in his chest.

“What?” He sets the book down on the bookshelf, following his boyfriend out of the shop and into the driver waiting outside. “What about him?”

**SEONGWOO**

“Minhyun-”

 _“Everyone,_ Seongwoo. I’m a man of my word.”

He takes a deep breath. “Jaehwan.”

“Three bullets, three gunmen, three victims. There’s no stopping them now.” Hyunbin crouches down to look into Seongwoo’s face curiously. “Unless my people see you jump.”

Seongwoo draws in his breaths harshly, his hands starting to turn cold. A bead of sweat forms at his brow and he wipes at it distractedly.

“You can have me arrested, you can torture me, you can do anything you like with me; but nothing’s gonna prevent them from pulling the trigger. Your only three friends in the world will die... _unless…”_

“-unless I kill myself –complete your story.” He fills in the blanks, and Hyunbin claps his hands in delight, tilting his head to look at him.

 _“I’m_ not going to call them off. You’ve gotta admit that’s sexier.” He grins again, showing off all his teeth.

“And I die in disgrace.” Seongwoo notes.  “Of course. That’s the point of this.” Hyunbin stands, stepping back to give him space to breathe. “Go on.”

Painfully, Seongwoo rises and walks back to the edge. He’s been compromised, and his brain works furiously to find a loophole, something Hyunbin’s said that he can exploit...

“I told you how this ends.” He calls from behind him, and Seongwoo begins to laugh.

“What?” Hyunbin asks angrily.  “What is it? What did I miss?”

He turns back. _“You’re_ not going to do it. So the killers can be called off, then – there’s a recall code or a word or a number.” He stops giggling for a moment to catch his breath. “I don’t have to die if I’ve got you.”

“Oh!” Hyunbin laughs in relieved delight, tucking his hands into the pockets of his pink coat. “You think you can make me stop the order? You think you can make me do that?”

“Yes. So do you.” Seongwoo says firmly, stepping closer.

“No. You talk big. Naah. You’re boring. You’re _boring_ – you’re on the side of the angels.” Hyunbin says in frustration. Seongwoo lowers his voice to a growl.  

“Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one second that I am one of them.” He croons. Hyunbin locks his eyes on his and stares at him for a minute in silence, as if trying to figure out how far Seongwoo can go.

“No, you’re not.” Hyunbin’s voice is lowered too, and he has to lean forward to hear him. “I see. You’re not boring. No. You’re me.” He laughs again, sounding like a little boy. Seongwoo mirrors his smile. “You’re _me!_ Oh, _thank_ you, Seongwoo. You haven’t disappointed me after all.” He looks like he has tears in his eyes. Hyunbin offers his hand to him to shake, smiling happily all the while. Seongwoo looks down at it and very slowly, reaches forward to take it. Hyunbin’s hand is warm and smooth.  He looks up to see him with emotional tears in his eyes.

“As long as I’m alive, you can save your friends; you’ve got a way out.” Hyunbin acknowledges, lowering his eyes to look at their feet. He blinks twice. “Well, good luck with _that.”_

Very quickly, Hyunbin looks into his eyes, beams, opens his mouth wide and pulls him closer while putting his hand into his waistband. He pulls out the gun from it and points it into his own mouth. As Seongwoo rears back in horror, Hyunbin sticks the muzzle of the pistol into his own mouth, winks once, and pulls the trigger. He drops to the floor immediately, and Seongwoo stumbles back to avoid the pool of blood at his feet.

“No, no, _no.”_ He brings both hands to his ears, closing his eyes to block out the sight. Hyunbin’s beaming face is stuck in his head, the last ridiculous wink playing again and again. His mind works faster, a blur of thoughts that whirl through his head, scrambling his train of thoughts and reasoning and deductions and- _there is no way out._

_“Shit!”_

**MINHYUN**

He gets out of the car quickly, running across the road to get into the hospital, Jonghyun running in front of him. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he whips it out, answering the call.

 _“Minhyun.”_ Seongwoo’s voice crackles on the other side of the phone. He shouts at Jonghyun to stop and his partner rounds back to join him at the pavement. Jonghyun grabs his arm, tip-toeing and pressing his ear to the other side of the phone. Their breaths are short and rushed, panting.

“Are you okay?” He demands into the phone, looking for a gap in the traffic. “I’m coming to the labs to find you, okay?”

 _“No, no, don’t.”_ Seongwoo’s voice sounds odd. Minhyun’s brain automatically sifts through his brain, searching for the emotion behind it. His voice sounds too emotional, almost as if he’s panicking. _“Go back to where you alighted.”_

“What?”

_“Just go back. Please.”_

Jonghyun’s grasp slides down, and he holds on to his hand tightly as he leads the both of them back to the place where the driver dropped them off at. There’s an unspoken urgency in their footsteps. All around them, the night Seoul traffic has begun to dwindle as the moon rises in the sky. The pedestrians on the street walk quickly, hurriedly. These thoughts burst through his mind very quickly, and he focuses in one Seongwoo’s pants into the phone.

“Where are you?” He asks, putting him on speaker. There’s a shaky exhale on the other end of the line.

 _“Good. Look up, I’m on the rooftop.”_ Minhyun nearly drops the phone in shock, scanning the skyline of the surrounding buildings and spotting Seongwoo on the rooftop of Bart’s Hospital. Jonghyun makes a low keening noise and covers his face.

“What are you doing?” He interrogates, clutching onto Jonghyun’s hand like it’s a lifeline..

 _“I’m sorry. I paid Hyunbin to do all these things.”_ Seongwoo sounds tearful. Beside him, Jonghyun snatches the phone away and looks into it desperately. _“I sent him to you, to Jonghyun, to everyone. So I could be the Hero.”_

“That’s not true.” Jonghyun protests into the phone. “He put a bomb vest on me!”

 _“I told him to.”_ Seongwoo sways slightly. _“I’m a fake. Tomorrow, when the papers are published, everything inside is true. I want you to tell Jaehwan I’m sorry.”_

Jonghyun huffs in anger and passes the phone back to him, and Seongwoo shouts.

 _“Don’t move! Keep your eyes fixed on me!”_ He howls, the static making his voice a little unclear. _“Please, can you do that for me?”_

Minhyun flinches, and a series of words begin to overflow from Jonghyun’s mouth, curses and coaxes, but Seongwoo interrupts them again. The breathing on the other end of the line picks up, and Minhyun _knows_ that Seongwoo is scared. He’s hyperventilating, even.

 _“Jonghyun, Minhyun, I- I love-”_ Seongwoo coughs, and he sways more dangerously. _“I’m sorry.”_

“No, no, it’s okay, Seong.” Jonghyun is crying, tear tracks running down his face. “It’s okay, please-”

**JONGHYUN**

“-come back to me. I forgive you, I don’t-” He says desperately, stumbling over his own words and tangling his tongue.

 _“Jonghyun.”_ Seongwoo says sorrowfully, and Minhyun presses his lips together. _“Sorry about dinner.”_

He freezes. Up on the rooftop, Seongwoo flings the phone away from him and-

-falls forward.

 _“SEONGWOO!”_ The cry bursts from his lips, and he begins to run. He’s vaguely aware of Minhyun’s presence behind him as he sprints forward, until suddenly someone bangs into him.

He lands hard, knocking his head against the stones; his vision goes white for a few seconds. When his head stops spinning, he opens his eyes to see a couple trying to help him and Minhyun up, the wheels of their bicycles still spinning. Groaning, he sits up and sees a flood of people running around the building in front of the hospital. _What-_

He stands up and remembers, remembers Seongwoo and the fall and he hobbles in the direction. There are a bunch of people surrounding a crumpled mass of clothes on the pavement and he pushes his way through the crowd.

“I’m a doctor, I’m a doctor, let me come through.” He shouts, or he _thinks_ he is shouting. His mind has gone all foggy and his brain is fuzzy. Someone tries to hold him back, but he shakes free and moves forward- breaking through the crowd at last-, seizing Seongwoo’s wrist and feeling for a pulse. A paramedic peels his fingers off and he moves forward again to touch his boyfriend. “No, wait- please.”

The paramedics turn Seongwoo over so he’s lying on his back, and Jonghyun sees that his eyes are wide open and his face is streaked with blood. His fingers fall short and land on Seongwoo’s favourite blue coat, the expensive one that he bought for him four years ago, as a thank-you gift before he tried to leave. Back then, Seongwoo stopped him and told him to stay.

“No. You were the one who didn’t stay.” He cries, and Minhyun sinks to his knees beside him. His legs give way and he collapses, supported by the crowd behind him. “Stop, that’s my boyfriend-”

The medics put Seongwoo’s body on a stretcher and carry him into the hospital. Jonghyun struggles to get to his feet but sinks to his knees again. Seongwoo’s body is wheeled away, the black scarf wrapped around his neck waving goodbye, and he stares after it, uncomprehending.

“He’s _mine.”_ Jonghyun whispers under his breath, then his head is fuzzy and wrong and turned inside out and-

He blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope i explained things clearly enough esp bc i don't have other chapters before this to preempt the death oops
> 
> anyway please comment below! ♡ i love you guys have a good day/night


	5. the sign of three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to cat @zhujungjungting and kelly @ongstagram for editing!

**FIVE: THE SIGN OF THREE**

**MINHYUN**

**TWO YEARS LATER - SERBIA**

As he watches, the interrogator beats their prisoner to an inch of death.

_ “You broke in here for a reason.” _ The interrogator punches him across the face.  _ “Just tell us why and you can sleep. Remember sleep?” _ The prisoner is hunched forward over himself, keeping silent despite the blows to his body. Minhyun shifts the grip on his gun, putting his weight on the other leg.

He looks up sharply when the sound of metal hitting skin stops, replaced by hushed whispers.

_ “What did he say?”  _ He asks, curious.

_ “He said that I used to work in the navy, where I had an unhappy love affair.” _ The interrogator sounds confused, turning to drop the metal pipe on the floor and grabbing the prisoner by the hair.  _ “And that the electricity isn’t working in my bathroom, and that my wife is sleeping with our next door neighbour!” _

_ “What?” _ He questions again.

_ “The coffin maker!” _ The man stamps his foot on the floor like a petulant child, yanking the prisoner’s head farther up.  _ “If I go home now, I’ll catch them at it! I knew it! I knew there was something going on!”  _ The man releases his grip, whirls, and stamps out of the door, cursing loudly. Minhyun walks forward and sets his gun down on the table.

_ “So, my friend. Now it’s just you and me.” _ He croons, tilting the man’s chin up gently. “You have no idea the trouble it took to find you.”

The prisoner makes a vague, angry sound.

“Now listen to me. There’s an underground terrorist network active in Seoul.” He leans forward, even closer. “A massive attack is imminent. Sorry, but the holiday is over, sweetheart.”

Under the tangled mass of hair, Seongwoo grins darkly.

 

Seongwoo has the newspaper open in front of him as his beard is shaved off. At his desk, Minhyun clears his work from the month he was absent, marking off bills and reviewing military protocols.

“You have been busy.” Seongwoo notes, and Minhyun looks up to see that he has put the newspaper down and is inspecting his office.

“You too.” He says wryly. “Quite the busy little bee.”

“Kwon Hyunbin’s network – took me two years to dismantle it.” Seongwoo shakes his head ruefully, nodding at the attendant as she steps away. He looks clean shaven now, although the long hair looks ridiculous on him. Minhyun waves a hand at him to signal the hair dresser to begin his work.

“And you are certain you have?” He confirms.

“The Serbian side was the last piece of the puzzle.” Seongwoo winces as he shifts in his seat. He’s still recovering from the injuries dealt by the interrogator two days ago.   
“Yes. You got yourself in deep there-” Minhyun slides out a file from his locked drawer to check the report. “-with Baron Maupertuis. Quite a scheme.”   
“Colossal.” His ex agrees. He shuts the file, tossing it onto the table and propping his elbows on the desk.   
“Anyway, you’re safe now.” He prompts. Seongwoo hums. “A small ‘thank you’ wouldn’t go amiss.”   
“What for?” He sounds genuinely intrigued.   
“For wading in.” He says every word precisely. Seongwoo raises a hand to make the hair dresser stop, and the man steps back a little. “In case you’d forgotten, fieldwork is  _ not _ my natural milieu.”   
_ “‘Wading in’?  _ You sat there and watched me being beaten to a pulp!” Seongwoo protests angrily. His hands are clenched on the armrest, and Minhyun tilts his head to the side to study his reaction, frowning indignantly.   
"I got you out.” He reminds.   
“No –  _ I _ got me out. Why didn’t you intervene sooner?” Seongwoo waves his hand again, and the hair dresser comes closer. Clips of dark hair fall to the floor.   
“Well, I couldn’t risk giving myself away, could I? It would have ruined everything.” He looks down at his papers again, making brief little markings in the margins. He feels the full weight of Seongwoo’s glare on his head.   
“You were enjoying it.” He accuses. Minhyun makes a vague humming noise. When he speaks again, his voice is filled with contempt. _ “Definitely _ enjoying it.”   
“Listen: do you have any idea what it was like, Seong, going ‘under cover,’ smuggling my way into their ranks like that?” He demands, and Seongwoo sighs. They work in silence for a couple of minutes before he opens his mouth again.   
“I didn’t know you spoke Serbian.” Seongwoo comments drily.   
“I didn’t, but the language has a Slavic root, with frequent Turkish and German loan words.” He shrugs. “Took me a couple of hours.” Seongwoo falls into silence again.

“Did you miss me?” He asks.

Minhyun sets the pen down patiently and looks at his ex through his silver spectacles.

“No.” He intones with precision. Seongwoo scoffs, crossing his legs and wincing.

“And what of Jonghyun?” He inquires. Minhyun’s jaw tightens, and his ex looks worried. “Why do you look like  _ that?” _

“Jonghyun and I haven't spoken directly since your funeral.” He confesses, rubbing his forehead with the pads of his thumb. “That was what… two years ago?”

“You  _ have _ kept an eye on him, haven’t you?” Seongwoo makes sure, nodding appreciatively when he makes a sound of affirmation. “This was exactly as I predicted.”

“What, for him to become withdrawn? Think your death is his fault? Cut off contact with almost everyone he met through you?” Minhyun rolls his eyes. “I miss him, and as a result I miss you, for you connected us. He has a practice in Gangnam now, and he lives in a separate apartment.”

“We should pay him a visit.” Seongwoo claps his hands together in excitement. “Give him a surprise; he’d like that, right?”

“I don’t think that’d be a good idea.” He says delicately, steepling his hands in front of him. “Please. Let me handle this one.”

Seongwoo pouts. “Fine.” He mutters.

 

**JONGHYUN**

He pauses in front of the door, glancing down at the gold plaque set into it.

_ Hwang Minhyun, Director, S.K.I.A. _ It says simply. He frowns in thought. It has been a while since they talked… two years? More or less. Minhyun’s been recommending him in place of the consulting detective through texts, since  _ his _ death. Jonghyun’s mind flinches at the thought, but he steadies himself and knocks firmly on the door.

The set of double doors swing open, and he sees Minhyun smiling awkwardly at him from the main desk. He walks forward, black shoes clicking against the white marble. His ex stands and comes to meet him in the centre of the room.

“Minhyun.” He says in acknowledgement. “Jonghyun.” Minhyun looks like he’s drinking in the sight of him. He clears his throat. “I requested for your presence because I have a gift for you.”

“A gift?” He echoes, and his confusion must be evident to his ex, who laughs. His ears perk up at the sound, and he feels the corners of his lips curl up in response. A million memories burst through his mind like a flock of hummingbirds.

“Yes.” Minhyun nods once, then ushers him to sit in an armchair. “It’s about Seongwoo.”

Jonghyun’s heart thuds in his chest; images go through his mind: Seongwoo falling, Seongwoo laughing, Seongwoo throwing a tantrum- He jolts when he hears his last words all over again, as if he’s still here.  _ Sorry about dinner. _

“Jonghyun.” Minhyun reaches forward to touch him, then retracts the hand, perhaps remembering that they do not belong to each other anymore. “Look behind you.”

His breath is harsh to his ears, but he turns in his seat, supporting himself with the armrest. When he sees who is standing there, he nearly faints in shock.

“Hey.” Seongwoo grins, large and wide, at him. Jonghyun’s brain goes into overdrive, and he turns back to see Minhyun’s encouraging gaze. Very slowly, he folds in on himself.

For a very long time, a tiny part had wondered if Seongwoo faked his death, despite receiving the autopsy report from Guanlin. Suicides were easy: all you had to do was pretend, set out a body, and enlist the help of a local hospital. But as the days turned into weeks into months into years, his hope dwindled to nothing but despair. Seongwoo didn’t contact him at all, and so he had whole-heartedly believed he was dead.   
A hand touches his shoulder and he tenses at the contact, grabbing the wrist and standing. He pulls the object over, bring his shoulder up to support the additional weight. The unknown person crashes into the glass table, and the entire sheet of glass shatters under the pressure. Jonghyun is unthinking as he moves, sitting on the person’s chest and putting both hands at their throat. He  _ pushes- _

“Jong.” Seongwoo gasps, and his eyes waver. Jonghyun looks down into the imposter’s face and feels  _ rage.  _

“Jonghyun-” Minhyun is saying, trying to wrap his arms around him and trying to haul him off. Jonghyun snarls. How could he? How could he bring him here and give him this kind of punishment- He presses tighter, and Not-Seongwoo turns paler, eyes rolling up in his head. 

“How  _ dare _ you?” He brings the back of his head to connect with Minhyun’s nose, hard. Below him, the person holds his breath and leans his head back.

_ “The descent is easy!”  _ The man cries out, and Jonghyun lets go immediately, going slack. Minhyun succeeds in pulling him off, and he rolls onto the floor. Seongwoo gasps for breath, chest heaving up and down. Minhyun collapses onto the couch, ripping a few tissues off a tissue box to wipe at his bleeding nose. Jonghyun closes his eyes, feeling the rush of blood to his head, the pounding in his temples and the back of his eyes. 

“I did not expect to get hurt.” Minhyun deadpans, and Jonghyun cracks open one eye. 

“You knew.” He says quietly, voice lowered to a whisper.

“Yes. Two months ago, before I took my leave.” Minhyun lowers the tissues, a trail of red staining the top of his lip. Jonghyun props himself up on his forearms, feeling the soreness in his limbs from sudden choking. He gets to his knees and crawls over to look at Seongwoo, scraping at the makeup on his face until he sees the three moles on his cheek. 

“You were dead.” He huffs, sitting back on his heels. Seongwoo grins, still panting.

“You almost killed me.” He murmurs. Jonghyun smirks and brings his fist down across his face, breaking his nose cleanly. He howls, and above them Minhyun chuckles.

“Dinner,” he says clearly. “Tonight, pick me up at my place.” He demands, then gets to his feet painfully and walks towards the door.

“I see you didn’t lose your skills in the years you were unemployed, JR.” Minhyun calls. Jonghyun pauses and turns to see Minhyun’s face turned towards him. There’s a pained look on his face. “Did you think I would remain in the dark forever?”

“No,” he replies softly. “I thought you would have known  _ sooner.  _ Pity, Director Hwang, you’re late… again.”

 

**To: Inspector Kim**

**Dinner tonight, fancy. Meet me at my place.**

 

“What’s he doing here?’ Minhyun rears back in shock, peering around him at the inspector.

“We just had sex.” Jonghyun smiles sweetly, and behind him Jaehwan pulls his tie too tight, choking. 

“Jesus,  _ no!”  _ Jaehwan straightens his button up and steps into the shoes. “I didn’t know we were having dinner together.”

“We are.” Minhyun explains hurriedly at Jonghyun’s glare. He smooths his expression over and steps out of the door, waiting patiently for Jaehwan to step out before locking the door. The trip down to the lobby in the lift is spent in awkward silence and looks. There’s a limousine outside the door, and the driver nods at him before sliding the door open. Inside, Seongwoo is seated at the back seat and typing away at his phone. Jaehwan follows, sitting down and shifting to become comfortable. 

“Hello, Inspector.” Seongwoo tosses his phone next to him. Jaehwan shrieks immediately as the car drives off. “When’s the wedding?”

_ “You-”  _ Jaehwan chokes, leaning back into the seats. Seongwoo gives him a wink and bends forward to pinch him.  _ “You’re alive!” _

“I appear to be, Inspector.” Seongwoo nods thoughtfully. “Well spotted, as usual.”

“Dick.” Jaehwan scowls, then frowns in thought and turns his body towards Jonghyun. “How has he not killed you yet?”

“Oh, believe me, he tried.” Minhyun quips, nudging Seongwoo to make room. “Are 2you getting married, Jaehwan?”

“Yes, in four days.” Jaehwan bites, looking at the Director with scorn. “I sent you an invite.”

“Did you?” Minhyun looks surprised. “Why would you want me at your wedding?’

Jaehwan looks like he’s got a million thoughts running through his head.

“I thought- We’re friends, aren’t we?” He asks, voice wavering. He’s unsure. Jonghyun sees the look in Seongwoo’s eyes soften.

“Of course we are.” He says, and Jaehwan nods to be sure.

“Okay, then the three of you are invited. You  _ will  _ come, won’t you?” He folds his fingers nervously, foot tapping on the carpet.

“I suppose we’ll manage to attend.” Seongwoo says off-handedly, and Jonghyun hides his smile. Even two years later, he’s still an asshole. A well-meaning one, but still. They arrive at their destination soon enough, and Minhyun helps Jonghyun out of the car. Jaehwan scrambles out as elegantly as he can, with Seongwoo slipping on the mat as he goes. 

“Good evening Director, table for three as on the reservation?” The maître d'hôtel checks, and Jaehwan’s phone rings.

“Just a moment.” Minhyun smiles charmingly, and the maître d nods in acknowledgement.

“What? He’s sick? I’m sure Major Sholto will be there, it’s just that he lives in the middle of nowhere- Probably no letterbox to RSVP back or something- No, honey, please. The poor man doesn’t liked to be phoned.” Jaehwan stutters, and Jonghyun sighs. He hangs up, looking at the three of them apologetically. “Sorry, got to go.”

“My driver is still around. He’ll drop you off.” Minhyun reaches out to pat his shoulder. “See you soon, Inspector. Oh, and congratulations.” Jaehwan beams and claps his shoulder hard in a friendly gesture. 

“Your presence will be awfully missed.” Seongwoo says gravely, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled, and Jonghyun hits the back of his head.

“See you, Jaehwan. We’ll be there.” He waves, and Jaehwan jogs back to the car, waiting silently. Minhyun turns back to the maître d again, and he leads them to their table. Their orders are taken, and then Jonghyun puts his coat on the back of his chair before steepling his hands in front of him.

“So, how did you do it?” He asks.

“I calculated that there were thirteen possibilities once I’d invited Hyunbin onto the roof. I wanted to avoid dying if at all possible.” Seongwoo starts again, going rapid fire. “The first scenario involved hurling myself into a parked hospital van filled with washing bags. Impossible. The angle was too steep. Secondly, a system of Japanese wrestling-”

“To the  _ point _ , Seongwoo.” He reminds, and the waiter sets down their appetizers. Jonghyun picks up the knife to inspect the sharp edge, watching Seongwoo’s Adam’s apple bob nervously.

“I fell.” Minhyun sits forward at the change in tone. “It was terrifying, and exhilarating at the same time. My homeless network laid out an intricate plan, the first of which was for my fall to be cushioned. The angle the both of you were standing at restricted the view of how my fall  _ ended,  _ which was on a safety cushion. At the same time, the hospital staff wheeled out a body and laid it out on the street where I should have landed. I swapped places with the body, doused blood on myself and slipped a stress ball under my armpit. Simple.”

“Rudimentary.” Jonghyun agrees mildly, spearing his last scallop. “And who knew?”

“Guanlin.” Seongwoo hasn’t touched his appetizer. Beside them, Minhyun has finished his and put his cutlery to the side. A waiter whirls by to collect the dish. “That’s all.”

“Hm.” Jonghyun chews. Seongwoo looks down at his plate in surprise, picking up the seafood and putting it into his mouth. In the little raised platform in the centre of the room, the pianist plays a soulful rendition of Yiruma’s River Flows in You. He takes a sip out of the wine glass. 

“You’re handling this very well.” Minhyun says quietly, then jumps. Seongwoo probably kicked him under the table. 

“Oh, he’s getting punished.” Jonghyun says evenly. On cue, his phone buzzes erratically against his thigh. He wields the oblong like a weapon, setting it down on the table so his two counterparts can read.

 

**From: Inspector Kim**

**Hey, can you help me ask Seongwoo if he will be my Best Man? The original one is sick.**

**Seongwoo’s the only one fast enough to write a speech just in time.**

**He** **_does_ ** **need to tell the world he’s alive, anyway.**

 

“You want me to speak in public?” Seongwoo sounds horrified.

“Correction, you are going to speak at Jaehwan’s wedding.” Jonghyun insists, placing the phone back into his pocket. Seongwoo swallows nervously, and beside them Minhyun giggles softly.

 

**SEONGWOO**

He’s panicking.

Seongwoo glares at the sheet of paper in his hands. Stupid Jaehwan, stupid Jonghyun- No, not Jonghyun. From the couch, his ex props his feet up on the arm rest. All around them, the helpers are in a hurry. They met Jaehwan earlier, who had shook his hand profusely, then disappearing to find a General Sholto. 

“Help me.” He begs. Jonghyun shakes his head and holds the newspaper up even higher so it covers his face.

“Seongwoo, this is my fiance.” Jaehwan whirls into the room again, and he looks up, squinting at the man.

“A  _ librarian?”  _ He asks, surprised. The fiance looks stunned, but he offers a hand gamely enough.

“I’m Sewoon, nice to meet you.” He says, and he shakes the hand briefly before dropping it. “I’ve heard lots about you.”

“All curses, I think.” He claps Jaehwan on the shoulder, leaning back to assess the outfit. “Your hair is in a mess, Inspector, but you look alright.” Jaehwan sputters in defence. A hand lands on his shoulder and he hears Jonghyun’s laugh.

“He means that the both of you look dashing.” Jonghyun says warmly, and Seongwoo hangs back to let him do his thing: socialising. Ugh. Seongwoo wanders out of the door, looking around at the guests. There’s someone dressed in full military uniform seated in a corner, looking very displeased. Their eyes meet briefly, and then someone is taking him by the elbow and moving him along to the back. 

“Who’s that in the corner?” He asks Sewoon. The man peers out into the reception, then turns back to face him.

“Major Sholto, mentored Jaehwan once. Bad past, that man.” Sewoon shakes his head ruefully. “He led a bunch of new recruits into a drug bust, only he and another kid survived. Poor man.”

“Hm. I might have read it in the newspapers.” He muses, and Sewoon lowers his voice.

“Hey, Seongwoo?” He asks. He hums in response and motions for him to speak. “Can you not smart talk at my wedding if possible?”

Seongwoo pauses, turns to him, and says: “I’ll try my best.”

 

“It came to my attention last night that the Inspector needed a new Best Man. In short, he wanted someone who could make a speech in less than a week and not screw up in the short three minutes he was allowed to speak freely.” He rattles off, looking down at the cue cards in his hands. “It was also a punishment from my partner Jonghyun, as a result of minimal contact over the past two years-”

“No contact.” Jonghyun hisses angrily.

“-no contact over the past two years,” he corrects. “It seemed to him that I would be the right person for the job, because indeed, any reputation I have for mental acuity and sharpness comes, in truth, from the extraordinary contrast Jaehwan so selflessly provides.” Jaehwan sighs heavily. “It is a fact, I believe, that brides tend to favour exceptionally plain bridesmaids for their big day. There is a certain analogy there, I feel.”

He flips through the cards faster. 

“Now, the good things about Jaehwan.” He reads off the card. “Hm, there’s nothing written here. Very well, I will give an example. We’ve solved quite a number of cases together- from Jonghyun’s blog: A Study in Pink, The Blind Banker, The Great Game, and many more… but today I want to talk about The Bloody Guardsman.” 

“A few years ago, it came to my attention that one of the Guardsmen in front of the Blue House was being stalked. This man came to me and presented a case. He said that he was being watched, not by tourists, but someone with far more sinister intentions.” Seongwoo looks up. He has everyone’s attention now - good. Minhyun was right when he said that people loved drama. 

“So I told Jaehwan, and the both of us went to inspect him. We pulled a couple of tricks to get into the building, but eventually we made it there. Unfortunately, we were a little late.” As he talks, his brain pulls images rooted in his mind palace to the front of his brain. The Guardsman slumped forward on broken glass in the shower cubicle, the water stained red and the tangy iron smell in the air. Suddenly, he’s back in the common toilet again, the duty sergeant tense and worried beside him. _ “Suicide?” _

_ “No. The weapon again – no knife.” _ He answers, walking forward to the head of the shower cubicle and inspecting the scene. Jaehwan is on his knees in the water.

_ “Hmm. There is a wound to the abdomen – incredibly fine.” _ Jaehwan comments, pulling on his gloves. He’s been more relaxed about the whole Inspector thing lately.

_ “Man stabbed to death. No murder weapon. Door locked from the inside. Only one way in or out of here.” _ Seongwoo muses, and Jaehwan shifts his foot so he can reach the soldier’s head. He peels open one eye.

_ “Seongwoo,” _ he inhales sharply. He makes a vague humming noise in response.  _ “He’s still breathing.” _ Above them, the duty sergeant claps his hands to his mouth and seems to be praying.

_ “What do we do?” _ He demands, and Jaehwan shifts his weight again so he’s back to the wound, reaching up to yank Seongwoo’s scarf off. He pushes the fabric into his hands and tells him to press it to the wound, hard.

_ “Call an ambulance.” _ Jaehwan says, checking the body for any further injury.

_ “What?”  _ The officer asks, sounding confused.

_ “Call an ambulance now.” _ Jaehwan points to the door, cursing when the men hesitate.  _ “Do it or this man will _ die!”

He wrenches himself out from the memory, looking up to see Minhyun slip in through the backdoor and make his way down to his seat.

“There was one feature, and only one feature, of interest in the whole of this baffling case, and quite frankly it was the usual. Inspector Kim – who, while I was trying to solve the murder, instead saved a life.” He nods to the married man. “He’s a good man, Sewoon. I don’t know you that well, but I think you’ll be a magnificent couple.”

“No-no, wait, so how was it... how was it done?” Someone calls out, interrupting his train of thought.

“How was what done?” He asks irritably.

“The stabbing.” The girl on her feet looks unsure. Seongwoo looks down awkwardly for a few moments, then raises his head.

“I’m afraid I don’t know. I didn’t solve that one. That’s,” He pauses. “It can happen sometimes. It’s very... very disappointing.” He turns back to the wedded couple with a brilliant smile. “But I’m also at liberty to embarrass the Inspector, so here we go-”

“There is another case, in which Jaehwan was drunk most of the time. This case happened just two nights ago, which is very interesting, because it was Jaehwan’s stag night. Anyway, a man named Dereck called the station and explained that he believed that he just had a date with a ghost.”

“He immediately referred him to me, and the both of them invaded my house at two in the morning. Needless to say, Jonghyun nearly shot Jaehwan in the face while the Inspector read out the Korean alphabet backwards. Incredibly charming, isn’t it?” He turns again to wink at the groom. Jaehwan has a vein pulsing at his temple, while Sewoon looks like he’s trying not to burst into laughter.

 

**TWO NIGHTS AGO**

“I don’t... a lot... I mean, I don’t... date all that much…” Dereck mumbles uncertainly, fingers propping his chin up. “...and... he seemed... nice, you know?”

Seongwoo eyes the drunk Inspector with amusement. He’s half folded over himself in an effort to keep the two of them from noticing the beer stain on his white shirt. From Dereck’s disappointed gaze when it skips past him, it’s definitely not working.

“We seemed to automatically connect. We had one night – dinner, such interesting conversation. It was lovely. To be honest, I’d love to have gone further,” the client continues, waving a hand and locking eyes with him. “But I thought, ‘No, this is special. Let’s take it slowly- exchange numbers- He said he’d get in touch and then- Maybe he wasn’t quite as keen as I was-  but I – I just thought,” Dereck looks like he has actual tears in his eyes. There’s no Jonghyun in sight after he went back to sleep grumpily, so he passes the client a tissue to dab at his face. “At least he’d call to say that we were finished.” Seongwoo nods as emphatically as he can. “I went round there, to his flat. No trace of him. Sirs…” Dereck lowers the tissue to lean forward even farther, the expression on his face worried and open. “ I honestly think I had dinner... with a ghost.”

At that exact same moment, Jaehwan lets out a rather loud snore, and Seongwoo shoves a pillow at him to wake, or at least shut him up at least. Dereck looks infuriated.

“With a ghost, Inspector!” He cries, and Jaehwan’s chin topples off his hand. The Inspector wrenches himself upright.

“Fascinating!”  He grins like a maniac, before registering the disgusted look on Dereck’s face. “I mean, how terribly unfortunate-” Jaehwan turns to Seongwoo and sends him a look he’s rather acquainted with. The stupid one, with his eyebrows raised and mouth pinched at the corners.

“Apologies about the Inspector, it seems that he’s rather inebriated.” Seongwoo shoves another throw pillow from the couch at him.

“I checked with the landlady, and the man who lived there died. Heart attack. And there we are, having dinner one week on.” Dereck’s words are rushed- He’s nervous. Fearful. He reaches to pick up the black backpack from the floor, where Seongwoo spots a badge belonging exclusively to Bart Hospital’s rival’s nursing staff: Dunearn Hospital. “And I found this thing online, sort of chatroom thing for people who think they’re dating men from the spirit world.” Dereck produces a sort of leaflet from it, and Seongwoo takes it. 

“Don’t worry. The Inspector and I will find him in ten minutes.” He promises, rising to his feet. Since this isn’t an official case yet, he’ll need Jaehwan and his police identification card to request entry into the person’s house. The apartment is a rather fancy place, all purple trim and white wallpaper with gold accents. It’s been touched - everything. The landlady probably cleaned this place up for the next taker already. Seongwoo sighs, then drops to his knees to look underneath the shoe cabinet.

“You all right?” Dereck nudges Jaehwan, and the man hums happily.

“Hmm? Yeah. He’s clueing.” He sits down on the lime green couch, and Seongwoo opens his mouth to scold him about disrupting the seat patterns before deciding that he’s much more useful when he’s not stumbling around.

“What?” Dereck inquires.

“He’s... hmm?” Jaehwan puts his feet on the armrest and turns so he can lie down on the couch. “He’s clueing for looks. Seongwoo!”

He watches as Jaehwan throws himself off the couch onto the floor. 

“We should look at the ceiling. Ghosts always come from ceilings in the movies.” Jaehwan snaps his fingers, then winces at the loud crack. The landlady behind them taps her fingers on the wooden door irritatedly. Suddenly, Jaehwan leans forward and vomits all over the rug, and a little bit gets on Seongwoo’s shoes.

“I’m calling the police.” The landlady says angrily, stampeding forward to grab the Inspector by the forearm and haul him to his feet. Dereck winces.

“This is a famous detective. It’s Ong Seongwoo and the inspector; Jonathan Kim Jaehwan.” Dereck explains hurriedly, reaching forward to pull Jaehwan back. The landlady slaps away his hand and looks down at him through her reading glasses. 

“Bloody waste of time, this is.” She complains, continuing to drag Jaehwan out of the door. She punches the lift button and shoves him in. Jaehwan crumples gently to the floor, leans his head against the wall, and begins to snore again. “Out of my house!”

 

**THE NEXT DAY**

“There’s got to be other people.” Jaehwan insists, pressing an iced cloth to his head. Jonghyun hands him a mug of hangover soup to sip as the two of them muse over the case. Dereck left after last night, disappointed. “Look at the website, see?”

“Victims, men. Most ghosts tend to haunt a single house – this ghost, however, is willing to commute, look.” Seongwoo agrees, pushing a map over the table. He’s put in pins where the people online in the chatroom have described meeting the ghost. There are two dozen pins standing straight on the map, roughly in a circle surrounding the Han River. He enters the chatroom, looking closely at the responses, hissing when he cannot find a common factor between the victims.

“You’re missing the obvious, man.” Jaehwan points.

“Am I?” Seongwoo asks dryly, clicking through hundreds of responses and rants.

“He’s a man.” Jaehwan points out, taking a red pen from the table to circle all the responses they printed out. Seongwoo reaches forward and slams the laptop shut in frustration.

“But why would he change his identity?” He demands, turning to face Jaehwan. The man leans back, and he rearranges his facial expression to something less drastic.

“Maybe he’s religious or married?” Jaehwan asks.

**IN THE RECEPTION**

_ “Oh.”  _ He says softly. Very quickly, his brain sifts through what he just said and arrives at the singular line Dereck offered right before the landlady kicked them out.

_ -and the inspector; Jonathan Kim Jaehwan. _

Dereck  _ shouldn’t  _ know Jaehwan’s Catholic name; he barely used the full English version of his name since he rennounced the religion. How- He freezes over entirely and turns to look up at the banner stretched over the grooms’ table: it’s a blown up invitation of the wedding invitation.

_ Jeong Sewoon and Jonathan Kim Jaehwan invite you to… _

So. Dereck’s seen the wedding invitation.

“Seongwoo?” Jonghyun asks warily, and he holds up one hand to make him pause, and closes his eyes. Dereck knew about the wedding, which means- 

 

_ In his mind palace, he’s a kid again, standing opposite Kid-Minhyun. _

_ “What do we say about coincidence, Seongwoo?” Kid-Minhyun sings, tilting his head in the frustrating manner he’s come to find charming. Seongwoo moves towards him. _

_ “The universe is rarely so lazy.” He replies sharply, Kid-Minhyun nods, waving a hand. _

_ “So, the balance of probability is...?” He prompts. _

_ “Someone went to great lengths to find out something about this wedding.” He answers, moving around Kid-Minhyun in the circle. His counterpart raises both eyebrows in exasperation, so he answers the question. “They lied, assumed false identities.” _

_ “Which suggests...?” Kid-Minhyun turns to face him, and he stops in his footsteps. _

_ “Criminal intent.” He breathes. _

_ “Also suggests...?”  _

_ “Intelligence, planning-” He counts, but Kid-Minhyun interrupts him immediately. _

_ “Clearly, Seongwoo,” there’s a note of fond exasperation in his tone, “but more importantly...?” _

 

“The Ghost is here.” He realises, and a series of murmurs erupt through the room.

“Seongwoo-” Jaehwan says firmly, half risen from his seat. Seongwoo’s eyes dart to Minhyun’s, who is watching him coolly.

“Ladies and gentlemen, people tell you not to milk a good speech – get off early, leave ’em laughing. Wise advice I’ll certainly try to bear in mind. But for now-” He puts a hand on the table and leaps over it, wincing when his injuries scream in protest. Stepping forward quickly, he begins to survey the room. “-time for part two. It’s going to be a little more action based, here.”

 

_ “Criminal intents, extraordinary lengths, all of which are suggestive of…?” _

 

“Let’s play Murder!” He doubles back to the main table, sweeping his arms grandly and pocketing the phone he left on the table. Putting it behind his back, he swipes it on and begins to text Minhyun. “Imagine someone’s going to get murdered at a wedding. Who exactly would you pick?”

“I think you’re a rather popular choice at the moment.” The girl from before laughs loudly. Seongwoo turns to observe the looks on Jaehwan’s and Jonghyun’s faces. Oh dear, they  _ do  _ look upset. He presses send quickly.

 

**To: Director**

**LOCK THIS PLACE DOWN**

 

From the corner of his eye, he sees Minhyun rise elegantly and make his way to the bathroom.

_ “Clearly  _ it’s a rare opportunity, so it’s someone who doesn’t get out much. Someone for whom a planned social encounter known about months in advance is an exception. Has to be a unique opportunity.” He scans the room even faster. A few guests have begun to look disturbed. “And since killing someone in public is difficult,” he tilts his head to look at the back of the room, “killing them in private isn’t an option. Someone who lives in an inaccessible or unknown location, then.” He pauses at the person seated in the corner, head tucked down. He looks almost as if he’s asleep, or trying not to be noticed. “Someone private, perhaps, obsessed with personal security.” Major Sholto looks up, and Seongwoo locks eyes with him.

“Possibly someone under threat.” He finishes quietly, and the Major rises from his seat, then sits down again. Seongwoo picks up a placard with one of the guest’s name on it and turns it to the blank side. He scribbles the words  _ IT’S YOU  _ onto it with the pen he keeps in his breast pocket and drops it off in front of the Major, then goes back to the centre of the room. “There has to be a plan-”

“Mr. Ong, maybe the invisible man with the invisible sword did it.” A little boy leaps to his feet. His parents put warning hands on his shoulders and he deflates slightly. His next words are said much quieter. “The one who killed the Guardsman.” Seongwoo inhales sharply, and the Major rises from his seat and escapes out of the door.

“Oh, not just planned. Planned and rehearsed.” He murmurs under his breath. “Ladies and gentlemen, there will now be a short interlude.” He runs back to the room, hobbling slightly. Jonghyun is up on his feet already, and he snatches his champagne glass from the table. “The bride and groom!”

Without waiting for the response, he utters: “Major Sholto’s going to be murdered. I don’t know how or by whom, but it’s going to happen.” 

Jaehwan pales immediately and Seongwoo sets his glass down, whirling out of the backdoor. Jaehwan, Jonghyun, and surprisingly, Sewoon, follow him out into the lobby of the hotel. Minhyun is standing by the reception. He puts the phone down when Seongwoo walks briskly to meet him. “It’s done-”

“Where’s the Major?” He interrupts, and Minhyun looks confused. Sewoon has his phone in his hand, swiping through documents before he arrives at the correct booking. 

“Room 901.” He announces, and the five of them scramble to the lift. Inside, Jonghyun hits the button for level nine and fills Minhyun in on what’s happened. The elevator music is turned on to ‘Stayin’ Alive’, which brings back unpleasant memories. Once they arrive at their level, Sewoon leads them to the first room. Seongwoo puts a hand on the doorknob and rattles it.

“Major Sholto!” Jaehwan calls.

“If someone’s about to make an attempt on my life, it won’t be the first time.” The Major says loudly enough so they can hear from the outside. Sewoon magically produces a card and tries to swipe it across. “I’m ready.”

“Major, let us in.” Jonghyun insists clearly. The light under the doorknob flashes green, and Jonghyun pushes forward, only to be met with the chain drawn across.

“Kick the door down.” Minhyun says grimly.

“I really wouldn’t.” The Major has his back turned to them and his facing a mirror. “I have a gun in my hand and a lifetime of unfortunate reflexes.”

_ “You’re not safe in there. _ Whoever’s after you, we know that a locked room doesn’t stop him.” Seongwoo emphasises, banging once on the door.

“Oh yes.” The man says wryly. “‘The invisible man with the invisible knife.’”

“I don’t know how he does it, so I can’t stop him, and that means he’ll do it again.” Seongwoo bangs on the door again. Frustrating, the chain must be incredibly strong to be holding up against the abuse.

“Solve it, then.” The Major commands. “You’re the famous Mr. Ong. Solve the case. Tell me how he did it and I’ll open the door.”

“Please, this is no time for games. Just let us in!” Jaehwan kicks the door in rage, then retracts, howling: “You’re in danger!”

“So are you, so long as you’re here.” The Major says calmly. “Please, leave me. Despite my reputation, I really don’t approve of collateral damage.”

“Solve it.” Jonghyun orders, and Seongwoo flinches.

“I couldn’t before-”

_ “Shut up. _ You are not a puzzle-solver – you never have been. You’re a drama queen.” Jonghyun hisses angrily and points into the room, one hand smoothing over his belt. “Now, there is a man in there about to die.  _ Solve it!” _

_ Belt. _

In a standard military style uniform, there are several components. Several can be changed or altered, such as the fit of the jacket or the military badges, or the style of the epaulette when a soldier is promoted. However, something that cannot be changed is the white webbing belt. It’s a compulsory item in the dress uniform. 

He recalls the server in the dining room serving beef skewers for lunch- As he pulled the skewer out, blood and juices erupted from the meat-

“Major Sholto, no-one’s coming to kill you.” He steps forward, and Minhyun furrows his eyebrows. He’s got one hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder to prevent any sudden bouts of violence. “I’m afraid you’ve already been killed several hours ago.”

“What did you say?” The Major, for the first time, sounds uncertain.

“Don’t take off your belt.” Seongwoo warns, then turns to the party. “His belt, yes. The Guardsman was stabbed hours before we even saw him, but it was through his belt. Tight belt, worn high on the waist. Very easy to push a small blade through the fabric and you wouldn’t even feel it.”

Jonghyun moves forward.

“The-the belt would bind the flesh together when it was tied tight-” He reasons slowly.

“Exactly.”

“- and when you took it off-” 

“Delayed action stabbing. All the time in the world to create an alibi.” He bangs on the door again. “Major Sholto?”

“So,” The Major muses, “I was to be killed by my uniform. How appropriate.” The Major stands up, facing the mirror so he can see them in the reflection of it, and tosses the pistol onto the bed behind him.

“He solved the case, Major. You’re supposed to open the door now.” Minhyun raps his knuckles on the door sharply. “A deal is a deal.”

“I’m not even supposed to have this any more.” The Major talks over him, his voice far away. “They gave me special dispensation to keep it. I couldn’t imagine life out of this uniform. I suppose–given the circumstances–I don’t have to. When so many want you dead, it hardly seems good manners to argue.” He puts his fingers to his belt, and Jaehwan cries out. “Mr. Ong, you and I are similar, I think.”

“Yes, I think we are.” Seongwoo replies softly. He remembers the roof of the hospital, with Hyunbin’s last wink replaying over and over again in his mind.

“There’s a proper time to die, isn’t there?” Sholto asks.

“Of course there is,” he agrees halfheartedly, a hand coming to rest on the doorknob. 

“And one should embrace it when it comes,” the Major’s voice is quietened. Jaehwan makes a choked sound and turns away from the door. “Like a soldier.” Jonghyun opens his mouth to persuade him to reconsider, but Seongwoo speaks first.

“Of course one should, but not at Jaehwan’s wedding. We wouldn’t do that, would we – you and me? We would  _ never _ do that to the Inspector.” Seongwoo knocks on the door gently as a reminder. The Major heaves a sigh and lets his hands drop from the belt. Jonghyun and Minhyun watch through the gap in the door as he makes his way to unlatch the chain.

“I believe I am in need of medical attention.” Sholto says gravely, and Minhyun nods, stepping away to call an ambulance. 

 

Minhyun and Jonghyun are dancing in the centre of the room, purple and red lights shining over them and painting their skin with colour. He watches stonily as Jonghyun whirls, laughing, a red light cast over him, making the hollow of his throat apparent. Minhyun grins down at him like he’s the best thing that’s happened to him, and Seongwoo shifts in his seat. He turns to put the beer, not even  _ touched,  _ down on the countertop and rises on his feet to move through the crowd. Just as he takes a second step, a hand lands on his shoulder.

“Well, glad to see you’ve pulled, Seongwoo, what with murderers running riot at my wedding.” Jaehwan grins, Sewoon holding his elbow in worry. The newly-married man looks drunk already, face flushed and lips cracked. “Anyway, we called the photographer back. He’s standing there in the corner.”

“Good,” he nods, then casts a last glance towards his exes dancing. He shakes his head slightly, then moves towards the photographer, “come with me, will you?” The photographer looks annoyed where he is standing, and when Seongwoo requests to see his camera, he begins to complain while opening the bag.

“What’s this about?” His tone is entirely exasperated. “I was halfway home!”

“You should have driven  _ faster.”  _ Seongwoo deadpans, receiving the camera and clicking through the photos quickly. “Very good.”

“What?” Jaehwan seems to have shaken himself out of his drunken stupor and steps forward to look over his shoulder. 

“There is always  _ someone _ at a wedding who is not in any photograph but can go anywhere, and even carry an equipment bag around with them if they like, and you never see their faces.” Seongwoo looks up and stares into the photographer's eyes, flipping the camera in his hand dangerously. The man’s eyes follow the movement. “You only ever see the camera.”

He raises his voice slightly, half drowned out by the club music pounding through the room. 

“I checked the list of people at this event, and your surname, Sam Jyor, matches the list of recruits who died in the drug bust Major Sholto led.” Seongwoo removes a pair of handcuffs from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and chains the man to the alcohol table. “The Guardsman and the Major were the only two from the eight of the officers who survived. So you  _ practiced.  _ You tried it with the Guardsman, then today, you murdered the Major.”

The look on the photographer’s face relaxes, smoothing over into something much more sinister. Sewoon steps back in horror.

“I shouldn’t have tried to be clever.” He agrees, and Seongwoo feels a familiar presence behind him. “Nearly got away with it, didn’t I?”

“Brilliant, ruthless, almost certainly a monomaniac – though, in fairness, his photographs are actually _ quite _ good.” Seongwoo hooks the strap of the camera around Jaehwan’s neck, then passes a voice recorder to Sewoon. “Everything you need to convict him is on here. Minhyun-” 

“The police are outside, since the Inspector seems rather out of it.” Minhyun says mildly. Seongwoo nods, and Sewoon thanks him with a tired smile. Jaehwan reaches up to peck him sloppily on the cheek, and he rears back in shock.

“Oh,  _ ew!”  _ He complains, and Jonghyun laughs. Jaehwan giggles, avoids the half-hearted step Seongwoo makes in his direction, and whisks Sewoon away to the centre of the room. Jonghyun is looking at him with a  _ look,  _ almost fondly. He swallows nervously and puts his hands behind his back.

“Do you carry handcuffs with you all the time now?” Jonghyun puts his arms around his neck. There’s a new song on, a slower one; it’s almost a waltz. 

“Remember to get them back, Seong.” Minhyun puts his chin on the juncture between Jonghyun’s shoulder and his neck, turning to press his lips to his skin. He grins teasingly up at him. “Might come in handy tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i got no balls to write a sex scene
> 
> i've been nominated for the wanna one fanfiction awards! 'to survive' was nominated for best canon compliant, best multi chaptered, and the golden star award. 'that letter' was nominated for best canon compliant and best angst, while #hyunsquared was nominated for best fluff. i was also nominated for fandom's most loved! thank you to everyone who included me in your nomination! if you don't have anyone else in mind to vote for, please vote for me [here](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fforms%2Fd%2Fe%2F1FAIpQLSd1EfuIYkdiCndvDAtWlf9vDYNS38Aj79Cmc_1NYxEYxdAZqQ%2Fviewform%3Fusp%3Dsf_link&t=MDIwMmIwNzNjNWNlZDBmZTJmNDBmODNjN2QyNTJkMWVlNjBhZmI2Nix2amFpam5UUw%3D%3D&b=t%3AvW8hPXfVm8Vn0Ckywj24Ug&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwannaonefanfictionawards.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F168389418080%2Fvoting-is-live&m=1)


	6. the final problem- part one

**SIX: THE FINAL PROBLEM - PART ONE**

 

**SEONGWOO**

In his dream, he’s six again and running along the corridors of his old apartment complex. When he turns his head back, he can see Redbeard and Minhyun chasing after him, laughing.

Then he’s gone- everyone is gone- the image of the gravestone he walks past every day after kindergarten with Redbeard looms up on him. The name on the stone reads _NEMO HOLMES,_ and the dates under it are so obviously wrong. He remembers standing in front of it for hours, wondering why anyone would make such a mistake.

 

_NEMO_

_HOLMES_

_1617 - 1822 \_

Aged 32 Years

 _"You’ve_ _got to remember, Seongwoo-ya.”_ A voice very familiar whispers, and he jerks himself upright, panting.

 

**MINHYUN**

 He’s got ‘An American Werewolf in London’ playing on his laptop. It’s been a long day, filled with problems and sabotages and people trying to bring him down from his position of power. It won’t be long before he controls the President like a puppet, wielding the strings proficiently like the others before him.

 _“Have you tried talking to a corpse? It's boring.”_ He mouths along to Goodman’s lines, grinning. He takes another sip of his milkshake- a rare indulgence. Jonghyun’s put the three of them on a vigorous diet and training plan for the fun of it, and Seongwoo’s gotten into enough trouble with his pizza outings. There’s a slight _thump,_ and he turns in his seat to observe the source of the noise. A crackle in his ear buds forces him to return his gaze to his laptop, and he watches in shock as the entire screen glitches-

 _“Seongwoo!”_ The prepubescent voice behind the camera shrieks. He flinches at the sound of his own voice- the video shows the familiar sight of the old apartment complex they were neighbours at- and the camera jerks to one side. Something is happening on the screen- words are being scratched on in red. He leans closer to inspect the words, yanking his earbuds out when it reads: “HYUNG, I’M BACK.”

Pushing the laptop off his lap so it lands softly on the couch, he rises to his feet and makes his way to the door of his office, shoving a shoulder at them when they don’t give.

 _“Shit.”_ He curses, and there’s a sudden chill in the air. He turns warily- the secret screen door has opened itself.

“Minhyun.” Something calls, a male voice young and playful. He walks towards the door, reaching out for his gun along the way. The hallway is dark, and something moves past him quickly. He lashes out angrily, only for his blows to meet air. The voice sounds much older when it insists: _“Hyung.”_

“Why don’t you show yourself?” He calls out, reaching up to turn on the torch light from his lapel pin. “I don’t have time-”

“We have plenty of time.” The voice sounds almost reproachful, and he moves closer. There’s a child with short hair standing in front of him, face covered with the hood of a red jacket. Surging forward, he points his gun at him- But it is an mannequin, the face blank and eyes crossed out in red. He shoves it aside and moves down the hallway. “Or would you rather I make my brother laugh?”

“Daniel, don’t you _dare_ touch Seongwoo.” He hisses, whirling around. There’s a sharp sound like a slap of a light switch, and the lights in the tunnel flicker to life to reveal Seongwoo standing at the end of the hallway. He blinks uncomprehendingly as his boyfriend strides purposefully towards him, catching him by the elbow and leading him back to the office.

Jonghyun is sitting where he was, laptop on his lap and earbuds in his ears. The assassin looks up and offers a gentle wave, and Minhyun goes to sit opposite him robotically. Seongwoo takes a seat next to Jonghyun and leans forward, propping his chin up with his hand on his knee.

“Experiment complete.” Seongwoo notes, and Jonghyun removes the earbuds to stare at him. He sinks back into the cushions. “Conclusion one: I have a brother named Daniel.” Minhyun looks down into his lap and realises that his hands are shaking impossibly. “Conclusion two: my brother has been incarcerated from an early age in a secure institution controlled by my boyfriend.”

Jonghyun moves the laptop onto the table.

“Conclusion three,” his voice is gentle, “you are terrified of him.”

Minhyun looks up, and says resolutely: “Yes.”

“Is it not time to explain yourself?” Jonghyun prompts. Seongwoo’s face is entirely expressionless.

“There were three of us: you, me and… Daniel.” Seongwoo comments uneasily. “How come I don’t remember?”

“Memories can resurface; wounds can re-open. The roads we walk have demons beneath-” He explains. At this point, Jonghyun stiffens. “-and yours have been waiting for a very long time. I used– at discrete intervals– potential trigger words to update myself as to your mental condition. I was looking after you.”

 _“Why can’t I_ remember _him?”_ Seongwoo bangs his hand on his knee, making a fist with his fingers all tightly curled. Minhyun pauses thoughtfully, then changes his direction.

“You know that I am the smart one between us, yes?” He points to the both of them. Jonghyun sinks back into his cushions, propping his feet up and wrapping his arms around his knees. “Back then, we had Daniel as well. He was the incandescent. Our abilities were professionally assessed more than once. I was remarkable, but Daniel was described as an era-defining genius, beyond Newton.”

“Why don’t I remember him?” Seongwoo growls.

“He knew things he should never have known as if he was somehow aware of truths beyond the normal scope.” Minhyun recounts. “They found him with a knife once. He seemed to be cutting himself. Your father was terrified. He thought it was a suicide attempt. But when I asked Daniel what he was doing, he said…”

In his mind, there is little Daniel standing in front of him all over again, head tilted to one side and blood trailing down his arm. He beams innocently at him, singing: _“I wanted to see how my muscles worked.”_

Jonghyun makes a soft, pained sound.

“So I asked him if he felt pain, and he said…”

_“Which one’s pain, hyung?”_

“What happened after that?” Seongwoo’s eyes have hardened to a flat black.

“I that am lost, oh who will find me?/ Deep down below the old beech tree/ Help succour me now the east winds blow-” He sings the song softly, and Seongwoo follows: “-Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go!/ Be not afraid to walk in the shade/ Save one save all, come try-”

“Redbeard.” He interrupts simply, watching realization bloom on his boyfriend’s face. “He took him and put him away, and we could never find him. He insisted that the answer was in the song, but the song made no sense.”

“What happened after that?” Jonghyun asks, putting a hand on Seongwoo’s shoulder. He shrugs emptily.

“We never found him. But he started calling him “Drowned Redbeard,” so we made our assumptions.” Minhyun tells Jonghyun, watching Seongwoo’s reaction from the corner of his eye. “Seongwoo was traumatised. Natural, I suppose – he was, in the early days, an emotional child; but after that he was different, changed. Never spoke of it again. In time, he seemed to forget that Daniel had ever even existed.”

“But where is he _now?”_ Seongwoo demands. A pensive look crosses Minhyun’s face, and he drums his fingers against his thigh uneasily.

“The demons beneath our roads…” He muses. “We keep them in a place called Imjado. Heaven may be a fantasy for the credulous and the afraid, but I can give you a map reference for Hell.” At this, Jonghyun looks up sharply to survey Seongwoo’s reaction. His eyebrows are drawn again, and his nostrils are slightly flared in anger, although the red tinge to his cheeks has faded a little. “That’s where he’s been, every single day. He hasn’t left once.”

“That’s impossible,” Seongwoo cuts in, “because I’ve met him. Remember Jaehwan’s wedding? Dereck?”

“Impossible.” Minhyun says firmly, and at that moment, something white and buzzing crashes in from his windows. Glass litters the floor, and he gets to his feet to check. Seongwoo rises from his seat and follows behind, while Jonghyun stands behind his chair.

“I that am lost/Oh, who will find me/Deep down below/The old beech tree?” A tiny, adult male voice comes out of the drone, drifting peacefully through the room. Something cold seeps into his veins- fear. It’s a voice he recognises. “Help succour me now/The East Wind’s blowing/Sixteen by six, brother/And under we go...”

“Stay back.” Jonghyun hisses, stepping quickly onto the high table and propelling himself up to reach the air vents, yanking off the metal cover and allowing it to land softly on the cushioned sofa. “Minhyun, go to the window! Seongwoo, the hidden door.”

“What is it?” Seongwoo backs away, and Jonghyun hefts himself into the vent by bending and jumping up.

“A DX-707.” Minhyun answers, backing into the open window and tilting his head back to look at the drop. “I’ve authorised the purchase for quite a few of those. Colloquially it is known as ‘the patience grenade’.” The drop is not too bad, he’ll probably land on top of some bushes. Seongwoo looks scared, and Jonghyun’s voice drifts from the top.

“Seongwoo, once the red-" The silver grenade lands, right on top of the latch for the air vent. A red button emerges from it, along with a beeping sound. “Shit.”

“The motion sensor has activated. If any of us move, the grenade will detonate.” He speaks quickly, lips barely moving. Above, there’s a light clanging sound signalling Jonghyun’s hasty escape. Minhyun looks to Seongwoo.

“The walls of the tunnel will protect you.” He murmurs. “At the end of the tunnel, there is a door to a car. I want you to take that car and go to the safe house, okay?”

Seongwoo blinks and a look of understanding passes between them. He exhales softly and counts to three.

At three, he flings himself backwards out of the window. Seongwoo darts into the tunnel and slams the door shut-

The last thing he sees of his office is that the entire thing is in flames.

 

**A FISHERMAN - SOMEWHERE IN THE YELLOW SEA**

_“...Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea, Shannon, Imjado…”_ The radio creaks. He glances up at that in interest, asking, “you hear that?

His partner looks at him and away, sighing.

“I never ’eard that one before.” He prompts. “Imjado?”

“Forget you ever ’eard it.” The gruff old man snaps, waving a fist at him. He frowns, questioning: “What?”

“Sometimes when we’re out in these waters, we get that message. Just forget about it.” He answers- growls, actually. He’s looking around nervously as if the word ‘Imjado’ is taboo.

“Yeah, but we’ve never-" He starts again, starting to become worried. He’s never seen Old Vince like this. The man holds up a warning finger and pretends to zip his lips with his other hand. The words die on his lips, and he sighs in defeat, looking down at the net again.

_THUMP!_

He looks across at Old Vince, whose hand is paused at the wheel. The man goes to see, and he follows behind with trepidation.

_Thump! Thump! Thump!_

There’s a man standing on their roof, his black coat fluttering imposingly behind him. His mouth drops open in shock when he sees what looks like the ship’s antennae in the stranger’s hand.

“Who the ’ell are you?” Old Vince spits, hand raising to rap sharply against the polished wood for emphasis.

“My name’s Ong Seongwoo.” The man announces crisply in the Seoul city dialect. He’s heard that name before...

“The detective!” He remembers, and Old Vince turns to look at him with an incredulous look. Detective Ong fixes him with a curious gaze before flinging the antennae off the side of the boat.

“No,” he corrects, tilting his head to one side. “the pirate.”

Something clunks up the stairs, and he sees someone dressed to kill- complete with a sniper in his hands and pistols strapped to his thighs. There’s another pistol on a Nike lanyard around his neck, the blue flowers on the barrel dangling enticingly.

He raises his hands immediately in horror, backing away from the stranger. From the roof, something big and black leaps at him.

 

**A GUARD - IMJADO CONTROL TOWER**

_"Golf Whiskey X-ray, this is a restricted area, repeat, restricted area. You are off course.”_

Pause.

_“Are you receiving?”_

Pause.

_“Golf Whiskey X-ray, you are off course. Are you receiving?”_

A cough, a crackle.

_“Yeah, receiving you. This is a distress call, repeat, distress call. We’re in trouble here.”_

A radar image on the screen in front of the technician shows a bright red dot close to the centre of the screen.

_“Golf Whiskey X-ray, what is your situation?”_

Pause.

_“Golf Whiskey X-ray? Where are you now?”_

“We’re headed for the rocks. We’re going to hit.”

The sound of desperate hands hitting the keyboard-

 

**SYSTEM LOCKDOWN**

**RED 5 PROCESS INITIATED**

  
“Governor to the Control Room.” He clicks his microphone, drumming his fingers on the table. The cup of coffee on the table tips over suddenly and spills all onto the floor. “Ah, shit.” All around him, the lights flash red. His vision goes slightly tinted red immediately, and he claps his hands to his ears on reflex when the sirens begin, standing up and grabbing his rifle. He makes his way to the main door quickly, joining his squad down in the front.

_“Lockdown in progress. Lockdown in progress.”_

The sound of people running and boots clicking against the floor.

_“Please proceed to designated Red stations. Please proceed to designated Red stations.”_

There are two fishermen tied together sitting on the beach, looking very tired and covered with sand. On the captain’s command, they aim the rifles and prepare to shoot.

“Wait!” The younger one fights furiously against the ropes. His efforts- as much as he can see- are futile.

“Oi! In the sand!” Someone yells from the patrol stations. He lowers his rifle and turns to his right, searching for the disturbance. “In the sand!”

He sees it then, the words scrawled into the sand with a stick discarded off the side.

 

TELL MY BROTHER

**I’M HERE**

 

**SEONHO**

_"I need to speak to the Director.”_ The Governor of Imjado insists over the phone. He tries to stay as calm as he can, the only evidence of his worry his chapped lips. 

“He’s in hospital.” He lies through his teeth. “There was an explosion.”

 _“Put me through to the hospital.”_ The Governor’s voice is reedy with panic. Seonho steels himself and remembers Minhyun’s last letter

“He’s not conscious;” he replies, “he’s severely injured. No one is even confident he’s going to pull through.”

 _"What about Ong Seongwoo?”_ There’s a faint crashing noise on the other side of the phone, one he can hear even above the incessant blare of sirens. He bites his tongue.

“Missing.”

 _“No, he’s not.”_ The Governor’s tone has changed. He sounds exasperated and even resigned. _“He’s here.”_ Seonho is unsure what to respond, but-

 _“Sir, we found two more from the boat.”_ Someone not the Governor reports, before he hears the click on the other end of the line. Seonho puts the ancient phone back onto its receiver and exhales through his nose. He closes his eyes, brings the pads of his fingers to rub at his eyelids, then opens his eyes to look at the stack of letters placed on his table. The one at the very top reads:

 

**Seonho,**

**In case of my death, you become the Director.**

**M.**

 

“Hyung,” he protests to the empty room, “what are you _doing?”_

 

**JONGHYUN**

“This is a mistake. I’m the victim ’ere.” The fisherman gets to his feet and points an angry finger at him. Jonghyun sighs and rolls his eyes despairingly at the Governor who enters. “This man stole my boat. ’e’s a _pirate.”_

“Yeah,” he deadpans, “I really am.”

“Please, sit down.” The Governor pulls out the chair opposite the both of them and sits in it.

“I-I don’t even know who ’e is!” The fisherman snaps and even stomps a foot in anger. Jonghyun clucks his tongue at the bad behaviour and tries not to bang his head into the table.

“This is Doctor Kim Jonghyun of Bart’s Hospital Psychology Department. Previously, he went by the name JR as an assassin.” The Governor levels him with a scolding look, and he returns the gaze evenly. “What are you doing here?

“It’s a fortress of mentally unstable people.” He shrugs. “Any work?”

The Governor closes his eyes with visible restraint and hands a security pass to the Guard standing next to him. “I want eyes on Daniel. Go straight to the Special Unit, deploy Green and Yellow Shift on my authority.”

“Sir.” The Guard snaps to attention, then opens the door and steps out of it. His boots click against the hallway as he leaves.

“I’m sparing your blushes because we’re supposed to be on the same side; and frankly,” the Governor sighs deeply, “this is embarrassing.

“The true art of disguise, according to your famous friend, is not being looked at.” He turns to the fisherman. Jonghyun eyes him with interest. “But I am looking at you, aren’t I, Mr. Ong?”

“Your incompetence is astounding.” Minhyun says drily, pulling off the wig to reveal his head of coiffed brown hair that springs back into shape. The look on the Governor’s face sours immediately as Jonghyun watches. As Minhyun pulls of the last of his disguise, he says, “You should have been looking at the guy you just gave your pass to.”

Minhyun shoots him an amused look, dropping the clothes onto the floor and picking them up, folding them nicely before setting them on the table.

“That’s the trouble with uniforms and name badges. People stop looking at faces. You’d be better off with clown outfits.” Minhyun sits down again and crosses his legs. “At least they’d be satirically relevant.”

“This is insane! This is unnecessary!” A series of protests erupts from the Governor’s lips. Jonghyun frowns and leans forward, jabbing a finger into the man’s chest.

“No; _your_ security is compromised and we don’t know who to trust.” He insists righteously.

“And that justifies _dressing up?”_ The Governor pushes away his hand, and Jonghyun can _feel_ Minhyun shift at the action.

“Yes, it _does!”_ His boyfriend slams a hand on the table, and he leans away in surprise as Minhyun gets into the Governor’s face. “It justifies dressing up or any _damned_ thing I say it does. Now, listen to me: for your own physical safety do not speak, do _not_ indulge in any non-verbal signals suggestive of internal thought. If Daniel’s safety is compromised; if Daniel’s security is compromised; if Daniel’s incarceration is compromised – in short, if I find _any indication_ he has left this island at any time, I swear to you, you will not make it past tonight.”

Jonghyun reaches out to the frozen man and plucks out his nametag to roll it around on his palm. Minhyun gives the man one last, disapproving glance, then puts a hand to his ear.

“Are you in?” He demands.

 _“Just arriving at the Secure Unit. Explain.”_ Seongwoo’s voice crackles over the three way communications.

“A prison within a prison. Daniel must be allowed the strict minimum of human interaction.” Minhyun murmurs gravely, keeping his eyes locked on to the Governor’s face. Jonghyun stands up and leans against the wall to observe the man’s behaviour.

Seongwoo’s voice is hushed when he asks, _“Why?”_

“Since you’re determined to meet him-" At this point something flickers in Minhyun’s eyes. “-you’re about to find out.”

The line on Seongwoo’s end goes dead- he’s inside a lift. Jonghyun tenses slightly at the radio silence, but Minhyun steels himself to interrogate the Governor.

“Answer yes or no. Has there ever been – against my express instructions – any attempt at a psychiatric evaluation on Daniel?” He demands, and the man nods once. Minhyun sighs and pinches at his nose bridge. “I presume the tapes are in my office?”

A genuine look of confusion crosses the man’s face as he asks, _“Your_ office?”

“Cast your mind back.” Minhyun stands and makes his way to the door, holding it open for Jonghyun to walk through. “It used to be yours.”

 

**SEONGWOO**

“You ’aven’t been down ’ere before, ’ave you? 'Silence of the Lambs',basically.” The guard says conversationally when he enters the scanning room. He frowns. “Keep your distance; stay at least three feet away from the glass an’ all that.”

At that moment, the lights turn white and he moves through the scanner, his ears beginning to pick up on the sound of a violin being played.

“Why the headphones?” He asks.

“She doesn’t stop playin’, sometimes for weeks.” The guard’s reply is short and tired.

“It’s beautiful,” he murmurs, then clarifies, “the music, I mean.”

“Kills you in the end.” The guard says flatly, then nods at him as he opens the door to the holding cell. He nods back, then closes the door.

Immediately, he removes the hat and the heavy jacket of the guard uniform, pressing his hands against the black button-up shirt to smooth it out. Silk- it must be Minhyun’s, then. He forgot whose clothes are whose in the chaos of getting out of Seoul.

There’s a glass wall in front of him, and the words _‘MAINTAIN DISTANCE OF THREE FEET’_ are frosted onto it. On the other side of the glass, Daniel’s back is facing him, and he does not stop playing even as he walks forward.

There is a bed on the right side opposite the glass, and no other furniture. His brother is standing right in the middle of the room, hand moving slowly on the violin. The music _is_ beautiful.

_Kills you in the end._

He takes another step forward, and Daniel’s hand jerks on the violin, producing a hurried series of notes- almost like a warning. He takes another step back, and his brother goes back to the original tune. He recognises it now- the tune. It’s his song.

Eventually, Daniel finishes his piece and drops the hand holding the bow to his side. Yet he doesn’t turn, but his voice crackles through the speakers when he asks, “Did you bring my ball?”

“Sorry?” He replies, uncertain. Daniel’s voice holds a tinge of impatience when he speaks again.

“My ball. Did you bring it like I asked you to?”

“I’m not one of the ... I-I don’t work here.”

Daniel’s voice is wistful when he murmurs, “My favourite ball.”

“I’m not one of your doctors.” He snaps.

“The one I made you steal, from Minhyun.” Daniel turns, finally. “It was the last thing I said to you, remember, the day they took me away.”

He shakes his head and says precisely: “No.”

“No?” Daniel echoes in amusement.

“No, we’ve spoken since then.” He remembers a drunken Jaehwan on his doorstep and Jonghyun pointing the gun at his head. “You came to me as Dereck before Jaehwan’s wedding.”

“Does this mean you didn’t bring my ball?”

“How did you manage to get out of this place?” The question bursts out from his lips before he can control or compose himself. Yet since he’s started, he can’t seem to stop. “How did you do that?”

“Easy.” Daniel tilts his head to observe. “Look at me.”

“I am looking at you.” He mutters in response. Daniel lets out a short laugh, shaking his head. There’s a look in his eyes that reads a cross between disappointment and amusement.

“You can’t see it, can you? You try and try but you just can’t see; you can’t _look.”_

“See what?” He demands, and Daniel holds out the violin to show him, asking: “What do you think?”

He hesitates, then says: “Beautiful.”

“You’re not looking at it.” Daniel says reproachfully.

“I meant your playing.” He explains.

“Oh, the music.” He lowers the violin and turns it round to look at the front. “I never know if it’s beautiful or not; only if it’s right.”

“Often they’re the same thing.” Seongwoo comments, and Daniel looks up at him with an inquisitive, searching look.

“If they’re not always the same thing, what’s the point in beauty?” He asks in disbelief, then turns the violin again so it’s facing him. “You play, don’t you?” With quick, soundless steps, his brother walks to the glass and bends on one knee, slipping the violin and its bow into the hatch. On his side, the hatch pops out with the violin in its drawer, and he goes over to pick it up, eyes focused on him.

“How did you know?” He fingers the violin bow and looks at his brother. Daniel looks upset.

“How did I know? I taught you, don’t you remember? How can you not remember that?” He fumes.

“Daniel, I don’t remember you at all.” He beseeches. Now, the expression on Daniel’s face rewrites itself into a smile.”Interesting. Minhyun told me you’d rewritten your memories; he didn’t tell me you’d written me out completely.”

“What do you mean, ‘rewritten’?” His heart seems to be thudding in his ears. He wonders if his brother can hear it- the way the predator can smell the fear of its prey.

“You still don’t know about Redbeard, do you?” Daniel comments casually, a tiny snarl beginning to replace the smile. Seongwoo’s silence makes him laugh. “Oh. This is going to be _such_ a good day.”

 

**MINHYUN**

 

They’re watching the old tapes. Jonghyun is drumming his fingers on the table, while the Governor sits on the couch. Minhyun is sitting at the desk, looking.

 _“Am I being punished?”_ Daniel is asking.

 _“_ _You’ve been bad.”_ The speaker cannot be seen from this angle, since the camera only shows the inside of the cell.

 _"There’s no such thing as ‘bad.’”_ Daniel sings.

 _“_ _What about good?”_

_“Good and bad are fairy tales. We have evolved to attach an emotional significance to what is nothing more than the survival strategy of the pack animal. We are conditioned to invest divinity in utility. Good isn’t really good, evil isn’t really wrong, and bottoms aren’t really pretty. You are a prisoner of your own meat.”_

“Why aren’t you?”

Daniel turns to look into the camera, winking conspiratorially. 

 _“I’m too smart.”_ He says precisely, and Minhyun hits pause on the recording before going onto the next one. Before he hits play, he looks over at Jonghyun. There’s a crease between the other’s eyebrows.

 _“She smiles at you when you come home.”_ Here, Daniel nods quickly. _“Like a reflex.”_

“Everyone we sent in there; it-it’s hard to describe.” The Governor is speaking out of turn, but Minhyun lets him. _He’s_ the one staying here after all, he might have some insight. “It’s... it’s like he…”

“... recruited them.” He finishes the sentence for the shaking man.

_“Smiling is advertising.”_

“Enslaved them.” The man corrects. Jonghyun looks up for the first time in the conversation.

“He’s been capable of that since she was five.” He says drily.

_“Smiling is happiness.”_

“He’s an adult now. I warned you; I _ordered_ you.”

“He’s clinically unique. We had to try.”

“At what cost?”

_“Happiness is a pop song. Sadness is a poem.”_

There’s in an uncomfortable silence, so he makes his voice gentler. “What cost?”

“Tell me the worst thing that has happened.” Jonghyun prompts, his voice smooth and understanding.

“He kept suggesting to Doctor Taylor that he should kill his family.”

“And?”

“He said it was like an earworm; couldn’t get her out of his head.”

“And?”

“He left.”

“And?”

“Killed himself.”

_“And?”_

“... his family.”

Minhyun lets out a long suffering sigh and turns back to the screen.

 _“Are you going to cry?”_ Daniel asks childishly, and he agrees mildly in his head. _“It’s okay if you cry.”_

 _“I don’t need to cry-”_ _  
_

_“I can_ help _you cry.”_

 

**SEONGWOO**

“Play for me.” Daniel waves a hand, gesturing mildly to the instrument in his hand. He closes his eyes, then opens them again.

“I need to know how you got out of here.” He warns.

“You know already.” Daniel says emptily. _“Look_ at me. Look and play.”

Keeping his eyes on him, he lifts the violin and starts to play Bach’s Sonata No. 1 in G minor. It’s the same time he was playing when Hyunbin entered his house- it seems like the song is the most familiar to him, after all these years.

“No, not Bach; you clearly don’t understand it. Play you.” The barb stings, and he drops his hand to the side.

“Me?” He questions.

 _“You.”_ Daniel agrees.

He hesitates, then thinks of Jonghyun’s lullaby. He’s only about two bars in the introduction when he’s interrupted. “Oh! Have you had sex?”

“Why do you ask?” He continues the song. It’s calming. He gets why Jonghyun insists on him playing it at night. 

“The music. _I’ve_ had sex.” Daniel winks, grinning roguishly.

“How?”

“One of the nurses got careless. I liked it. Messy, though. People are so breakable.” Daniel is still standing, almost like he doesn’t feel the strain in his legs. He himself has begun to tire.

“I take it she didn’t consent.” He remarks.

“She?” Daniel’s face is contorted.

“He?” He asks.

“Afraid I didn’t notice in the heat of the moment and afterwards… well, you couldn’t really tell. Is that vibrato or is your hand shaking?”

**MINHYUN**

In the governor’s office, Minhyun stands and crosses his arms, pacing.

“I warned you explicitly: no-one was to talk to him alone.” He growls.

“You spoke to him.” The Governor protests. He casts him a disgusted look.

 _“Stupid normal people.”_ He mumbles under his breath, and Jonghyun looks over in surprise. He raises his voice to address the Governor. “I know what I’m doing!”

“Careful, honey, you’re starting to sound like Seongwoo.” Jonghyun teases.

“You even brought him a visitor on Christmas Day.” The Governor points out. The mischievous look on Jonghyun’s face faded immediately to one of outrage.

“I took a calculated risk.” He mumbles, careful not to look at Jonghyun in the eye.

“You gave Daniel a Christmas present. Remember his Christmas present?” The Governor persists, and Minhyun briefly wonders how hard he will have to punch him to make him shut up.

“I am aware of the dangers Daniel poses, and equipped to deal with them.” He says strongly.

“What dangers?” Jonghyun narrows his eyes in warning, and he straightens up from his slouch.

“Daniel doesn’t just talk to people. He... reprograms them.” The both of them turn around simultaneously to look at the recording- it’s still playing. “Anyone who spends time with him is automatically compromised.”

 _“I’m only trying to help you. We can help each other.”_ The angle switches to show Daniel’s face on the screen. _“Helping someone is the best way you can help yourself.”_

The male voice, unsure: _“I don’t trust you.”_

 

**SEONGWOO**

“So clearly you remember _me.”_ He comments, watching Daniel stretch slightly. The hem of his shirt slides up to reveal toned abs.

“I remember everything; every single thing. You just need a big enough hard drive.” His brother shares, nodding in conviction. There’s a crackling in his earpiece.

 _“Seong.”_ Jonghyun demands.

“Not now.” He murmurs, and Daniel watches him curiously.

 _“The descent-"_ He removes the earpiece and lets it dangle against his chest. “Let’s continue.”

“Did they tell you to keep three feet from the glass?” Daniel inquires, smirking when he nods. “Be naughty. Step closer.”

“Why?”

“Do it.” His brother chides. “Step closer.”

He makes no attempt to move, but Daniel keeps walking, striding from one end of the room to the other. “Tell me what you remember.”

“You, me, and Minhyun.” Daniel muses. “Minhyun was quite clever. He could understand things if you went a bit slow but you... you were my favourite.”

Seongwoo takes one small step forward, then brings his feet together again. “Why was I your favourite?” His brother comes to a stop in the centre of the room, facing him, and mirrors his step forward.

“I could make you laugh; I loved it when you laughed. Once I made you laugh all night. I thought you were going to burst.” Seongwoo smiles slightly. “I was so happy.” He takes one step forward, and Daniel mirrors it again. “Then Daddy had to stop me, of course.”

“Why?”

“Well, turns out I got it wrong. Apparently, you were screaming.” Daniel lowers his gaze to the floor, his tone reflective.

“Why was I screaming?” He asks, and a slight whimper escapes from behind a closed door in his mind palace. “Redbeard. I remember.”

 _“Do_ you?” Daniel inquires in return. He takes one step forward. 

“Tell me what I don’t know.” Daniel mirrors his step- they are now so close to each other it makes his heart palpitate. He swallows nervously.

“Touch the glass.” Daniel whispers.

“Redbeard was my dog. I know what happened to him.” Seongwoo stutters. Daniel tilts his head.

“You know nothing,” he promises, “so touch the glass.”

 

**MINHYUN**

“I put my trust in you, my _implicit trust.”_ He hisses intensely. The Governor refuses to even look at him. “As governor of this institute-”

“It’s obvious when it all started. Well, he was never the same after that Christmas. It’s as if you woke him up.” The Governor tells the door.

 _“That is entirely beside the point!”_ Minhyun roars. “You had your orders and _failed_ to act on them!”

“Shut up.” Jonghyun says suddenly. “Listen to the tape.”

 _“What?”_ He asks in disbelief.

“Do it now. Listen.” Jonghyun commands.

 _“You have no idea how I could help.”_ The volume is too soft, so Minhyun walks across the room to turn it up. _“Bring me your wife. I want to meet her.”_

The man’s voice again, clearer now: _“I don’t need your help.”_

 _“I can fix her for you, and then I’ll give you her straight back, good as new.”_ The recording goes black and white, then full colour again, just in time for Daniel to murmur, _“I promise.”_

_“That’s all? What you’re proposing is not... it’s not right.”_

“Everyone who went in there got affected – ‘enslaved,’ you said.” Jonghyun observes. Minhyun turns to look at him. His boyfriend is looking at the Governor with a strange look in his eyes.

“Yes.” The Governor shifts uncomfortably.

“One after the other.”

“Yes.”

“Jonghyun-” He tries to say, but the look he’s shot with is downright poisonous.

“You, _shut_ up.” He commands, and his mouth closes with a click. Jonghyun points to the screen, addressing the Governor, “That’s your voice, isn’t it?”

_“Do you really? Do you trust her?”_

Now, it is clearly the Governor who replies: _“You’ve got to stop saying these things.”_

Jonghyun fixates Minhyun with a look of accusation, then turns the full weight of his glare onto the man. “If Daniel has enslaved you, then who exactly is in charge of this prison?”

The Governor’s voice again: _“It’s completely inappropriate.”_

The Governor slides a hand into his breast pocket just as Jonghyun lunges across the room. Jonghyun catches the back of the man’s head and brings it into the wooden table, and he makes a loud thudding sound.

Within seconds, the room is swarmed with guards.

 

**SEONGWOO**

Seongwoo’s hand is frozen, and Daniel’s eyes soften- as much as they can, like from metal to rock.

“I’ll touch the glass too, if you’re too scared, Seongwoo.” Daniel persuades, eyes glittering. Seongwoo thinks of Jonghyun and how his eyes seem like they are full of stars. Daniel’s eyes are different- they are filled with the points of knives, gleaming. “You think it’s a trick. You look so... unsure. You’re not used to being unsure, are you?”

“It’s more common than you’d think.” He replies softly.

 _“Look_ at you.” His brother raises his hand against the glass, not quite touching yet. Seongwoo seems to have regained control over his limbs- he brings up a hand shakily to match his. “The man who sees through everything... is exactly the man who doesn’t notice-”

Daniel leans closer- impossible- and touches his hand. Skin on skin. He flinches at the touch, and he curls his fingers around his palm with a triumphant grin.

“-when there’s nothing to see through.”

He exhales, and Daniel blinks, nodding quickly: “Do you see how it was done? I know you like explanations.”

He looks down, then sideways: at the small metal clamps he had assumed was on the glass. They aren’t, instead, they are projecting the three feet warning.  “Signs. You suspended the signs.”

“And my voice? Throat mic. Puts me through the speakers.” Daniel whispers, like they are small boys sharing a secret. _Click._ His voice is clear- someone has turned off the microphone, then- and asks, “Don’t you think it’s clever? Simple but _clever?”_

_The descent-_

“Transparent.” He breathes. He’s in danger; he needs to run. “The glass-”

“There was _never_ any glass. Well, you _do_ keep asking me how I got out of here.” Daniel untangles their fingers and steps back so he can breathe. He feels dizzy. “Just like this, hyung.” For one moment, Daniel is looking at him with pity. In the next, he inhales sharply and brings up both hands to slam the backs of his wrist onto his temples.

He falls, just like he did with Kwon Hyunbin, and his brother is sitting on top of his chest, pressing his fingers into his throat.

 _He’s choking you, Seongwoo._ Kid-Minhyun scolds. He draws in a gasping breath-

“Come in here, all of you!” Daniel shrieks, his grip tight. _“Stop me from killing him!”_

There’s a sound of boots against linoleum, then his brother relaxes his arm a little bit so he can breathe.

“No, wait.” His voice sounds calmer. “Pull me off in a minute.”

His vision is filled with the image of his brother, choking him to death.

 

**MINHYUN**

_“Red alert! Red alert! Big bad bouncy red alert!”_ His blood chills when he sees Hyunbin on the screens of the room, smiling like the mad man he is. _“Klingons attacking lower decks! Also, cowboys in black hats, and Darth Vader!”_

Someone seizes his arms and he stares uncomprehendingly at the screen. Across the room, Jonghyun seems to be having a similar reaction.

 _“Don’t be alarmed! I’m here now! I’m here now!”_ Hyunbin claps his hands in glee, leaning forward to observe them as if they are pieces in a chess game. _“Did you miss me? Did you miss me?_

_“Miss me? Miss me? Miss me? Miss me? Miss me? Miss me?”_

_\--_

A dream.

**_CHRISTMAS DAY - 5 YEARS AGO_ **

**_HYUNBIN_ **

  
_He chuckles quietly under his breath and follows the governor. Plugging off his ear buds and wrapping them tight around his fist, he waits patiently as the door to the conference room opens. He’s been flown specially from Seoul to Imjado, which he always thought was deserted. He frowns in thought. An accounting error. He’ll have to check his eyes on the country again; something this big shouldn’t have skipped his notice._

 _T_ _here’s someone is waiting inside at the far side of the room, looking out of the floor to ceiling window with his hands behind his back. The governor shuts the door after him, effectively banishing his bodyguards from the room as well. He lowers his sunglasses, folds them, and sets them on the table. Oak, it seems._  
_Minhyun turns around to face him, letting out a long sigh. He seems tired, exasperated._  
_His eyes dart to the mantle above the faux fireplace, where a scene of a Christmas nativity has been set up. There are little toys surrounding the manger: animals like horses and goats and sheep._

 _“Ah.” He grins at Minhyun, reaching out and picking the baby Jesus up from his cot. “Isn’t that sweet? Merry Christmas, Minhyun-hyung.”_  
_Minhyun rolls out the chair at the head of the table and sits down in it, kicking the chair next to him out. “Won’t you sit down?”_  
_He scoffs, looking down at the baby figure he is holding._

_“I wrote my own version of the nativity when I was a child.” He looks up to grin lewdly at Minhyun. “‘The Hungry Donkey.’  It was a bit gory but, if you’re gonna put a baby in a manger, you’re asking for trouble.” He lets go of the object in his hand, watching it slam against the table and crack precisely in two._

_“You know what this place is, of course?” Minhyun ignores him, as usual. Boring, boring. No one interesting likes to play anymore these days. He remembers a time when the man sitting in front of him was quiet and determined, pliant and accepting._

_“Of course.” He picks up another animal, a chicken. “So am I under arrest again?_  
_“You remain a person of interest, but until you commit a verifiable crime you are– I regret – at liberty.” Minhyun corrects, voice low and gravelly. He moves the animals, putting the chick in the manger and placing a snake on top of it._

_“Then why am I here?” He asks. He’s genuinely confused; Minhyun hasn’t contacted him in years since they went their separate ways. Turning, he glances at his ex-boyfriend’s eyes - the look in them is dark._

_“You’re a Christmas present.” Minhyun clicks the last ‘t’, being very precise. He smiles and opens his arms, making a bold move to sit in his lap._

_“How’d you want me, hyung?” He croons, leaning their foreheads together. Minhyun stares straight through him. Disappointing. He offers no resistance when his ex slips him off into a seat of his own._

_“There is, in this facility, a prisoner whose intellectual abilities are of occasional use to the Korean government.” Minhyun glances out of the widow again. He reaches forward to inspect the bottle of wine sitting on the table. It hasn’t been out long, and Minhyun doesn’t drink much, so it must be for him. He uncorks the bottle._

_“What, for, like, really difficult sums, long division, that sort of thing?”_

_“He predicted the exact dates of the last three terrorist attacks in Seoul after an hour on Twitter. That sort of thing. In return, however, he requires treats. Last year it was a violin.” Minhyun looks back at him, looking astonished as he puts the mouth of the bottle to his lips._

_“Don’t look so surprised, hyung. You know I like to drink.” He says, taking a large gulp._

_“It’s Minhyun. To you.” His counterpart looks infuriated._

_“Sure, hyung. What did this mysterious person want this year?” He sets the bottle down and makes a face. Cheap wine._

_“Five minutes’ unsupervised conversation ... with you.” Minhyun pushes the bottle back to its rightful spot, removing a blue lanyard from the inside of his coat and placing it on the table._

_“Me?!” He grins and blinks mock-bashfully before lifting one hand to his chest, pretending to look amazed. He can practically hear Minhyun’s teeth grinding against each other. “With me?!”_

_Leaning forward, he snatches the pass and studies it carefully. FULL ACCESS. Delightful._

_“He has noted your interest in the activities of a friend.” Minhyun eyes him carefully as he speaks._

_“So... what’s he got to do... with Ong Seongwoo?” He hooks the lanyard over his neck, throwing the pass over his shoulder so the blue cord hangs like a choker off his neck. Minhyun looks incredibly pained. Somewhere inside him remembers that once upon a time they had loved each other. A lot. He squashes the feeling inside him. “Whatever you’re about to tell me-” He gets to his feet, circling around the shadow of the man his ex once was.”-I already know it’s gonna be-”_  
  
He reaches the other end of the long table, leaning forward and bracing himself against the desk with his forearms.

“-awesome!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i held this back because of jonghyun's passing. i stand with all shawols and fans, if any of you need someone to talk to please contact me on twitter or curiouscat- my username for both is @wildflower_kjh ! the next part of this will be held back as well, so the last chapter will not be posted on christmas like i expected. i think it will be out before the year ends, so there's that to look forward to.
> 
> as always, to all my readers, please take care of yourselves! comment below if you enjoyed this chapter, that really helps to motivate me especially in this trying time. thank you.


	7. the final problem- part two

**SEVEN: THE FINAL PROBLEM - PART TWO**

**CHRISTMAS DAY - 5 YEARS AGO**

**DANIEL**

He stands when he sees the person named Hyunbin step through the door and walks up to the glass barrier. Hyunbin looks more handsome in real life, he muses, although he isn’t quite sure of the standards of beauty in normal people. The man shoots him a grin, all white teeth and designer clothing.

“I’m your Christmas present,” Hyunbin tilts his head, studying his reaction. Daniel grins slowly- this was unexpected. He _likes_ his voice. This man- _boy_ walks forward and places two hands on the glass, shoulder length apart. Also, they are positioned at both sides of his head, so if they were standing on the same side of the barrier, he would be caging him in. Interesting, this man is mad, after all. “So, what’s mine?”

He turns his head to the cameras surrounding his cell- the red lights go dead immediately, and he looks back to the man standing in front of him.

 _A consulting criminal,_ Minhyun had said. This would be interesting. He opens his mouth- He hasn’t spoken in awhile, but he’ll make this five minutes count. Slowly, he exhales and breathes a single word:

“Redbeard.”

 

**JONGHYUN**

He keeps his eyes closed as he regains control over himself.

Tranquilizer darts, damn it- He knew better. Against his own will, his fist clenches. There are three other people in the room- Is it a room? He doesn’t know- according to the sound of their breathing. One breathes quickly, as if spooked, almost on the edge of hyperventilating, but not quite. The other two are familiar, the soft huffs of Minhyun’s breath and the other the pained exhales coming from Seongwoo when he’s irritated.

If he doesn’t listen to their breaths, he can _sense._ Two people pacing up and down, parallel yet walking in opposite directions. The squeak of Italian shoes as it turns against marble flooring. There’s someone next to him too, the unfamiliar person. For one moment, his heartbeat quickens. Is it Hyunbin?   
His eyes snap open and he pushes himself up on one forearm, taking in the room. It _is_ a room after all. They’re in a cell of some sort, and the Governor is sitting next to him with his head in his hands. That would explain the amplified sound of his breathing.

Seongwoo’s shoes make clacking sounds as he walks to him. The top button of his silk shirt is unbuttoned, and his hair is beginning to curl on the ends. He leans around him to look for Minhyun- there he is, having stopped at the glass barrier and staring across the cell at him.

“Did you see your brother?” Jonghyun croaks, and Seongwoo’s face pales even further, giving him a tight nod. “How did that go?”

“Family’s always difficult,” Seongwoo sighs, scrubbing at the back of his head with his hands. He jumps when the sound of a phone dial plays across the speakers, and the Governor releases his head from his hands, looking confused. “Are we phoning someone?”

“Apparently,” Jonghyun says drily, looking over to Minhyun. “What’s the Governor doing here?”

“As he is told,” says the Director. The phone connects, and he hears the person-

 _“Help me, please. I’m on a plane and everyone’s asleep,”_ the boy’s voice is hysterical. Jonghyun pushes himself into a squatting position immediately. Children? In this? _“Help me!”_

A new, familiar voice, _“Hello. My name is Kwon Hyunbin.”_ His legs give out and he sits firmly on the marble floor again, looking across the room to stare at Seongwoo with shock. _“Welcome... to the final problem.”_

“It’s okay,” Seongwoo murmurs, “he’s dead.”

“He doesn’t _sound_ dead,” he accuses in return.

 _“This is a recorded announcement. Please say hello to some very old friends of mine.”_ Hyunbin chuckles at the end, and Minhyun turns around to bang his hand against the glass.

  
_“Hello? I can hear you talking. Please help me! I’m on a plane and it’s going to crash!”_

“What is this-” Minhyun growls. “We can’t do this!”

“Do shut up, dear.” Jonghyun hisses.

_“Is someone there?”_

“Is this supposed to be a _game?”_ Minhyun throws him a panicked look- if it is for himself or the boy on the plane, he knows not. He raises a single finger to his lips, and Minhyun looks away.

“Oh, hello. Uh, try to stay calm, okay?” Seongwoo’s voice has turned friendly, and he tilts his head, studying his response. “Just tell me what your name is.”

_“I’m not supposed to tell my name to strangers.”_

“Of course not!” Seongwoo yelps. “I’ll tell you mine, then, so we’re not strangers. I’m-”

 _Click._ The white screen he previously assumed was a wall lights up to show Daniel smiling gently at them.

“Oh dear,” the man notes, “we seem to have lost the connection.” Minhyun whirls to face his partner’s brother.

“How have you done this?” he demands. “How is any of this possible?”

 _“You_ put me in here, hyung.” Daniel looks down to inspect his fingernails. “You brought me my treats.”

 _“What_ treats?” he questions, and Daniel presses a button on the keyboard in front of him- it seems to be on his lap. _“Clever Daniel,”_ Hyunbin replaces Daniel and gives them a mocking round of applause, _“and stupid children.”_

“How can that be-”

“Oh,” Daniel hums and waves a hand, “he recorded plenty of little messages for me before he died.”

“The boy-” Seongwoo presses his palms to his cheeks. “-where is he? Can I talk to him again?”

“Poor little kid.” Daniel says. “Alone in the sky in a great big plane with nowhere to land. But where in the world is he? It’s a clever little puzzle. If you want to apply yourself to it, I can reconnect you; but first…” He sits back in his chair and turns slowly. The camera follows- it’s been attached to the arm of his chair. The Governor makes a low keening sound when it becomes clear when he wants them to see- a woman sitting on the floor, blindfolded. Her wrists are manacled, and there is red tape across her mouth.

“That’s my _wife,”_ the Governor groans. “Oh God, that’s my _wife!”_ He scrambles to his feet quickly and brings himself to his knees in front of the screen.

“I’m going to shoot his wife,” Daniel grins. Minhyun turns away and puts a hand to his mouth. The Governor turns around to scratch at Seongwoo’s slacks, pleading, “Please. Help her!” Seongwoo locks eyes with his brother. “In about a minute. Bang! Dead.”

“Please don’t do that,” Seongwoo says tiredly. Daniel shrugs, singing, “Well, it’s not like _you_ can stop me- Wait, maybe you can.”

“How?” Jonghyun asks, and Daniel doesn’t spare him a glance, keeping his eyes fixed on his brother.

“There’s a gun in the hatch- Take it,” he commands, and Seongwoo reaches into the tiny drawer to pick out the gun inside. A pistol, by the make of it… and a model he used to use often. He looks up at Daniel- the punk is keen to mess with him too, it seems.

“You want to save his wife?” he asks, propping his head up on his chin. “Choose either Director Hwang or Doctor Kim to kill him.”

“Oh, God!” the Governor cries out, dropping onto his ankles.  

 _“You_ can’t do it, Seongwoo-hyung,” he sings, “doesn’t count if you do it.” The Governor turns to Minhyun, pleading. Minhyun steps back, horrified, and closes his eyes. He turns his gaze onnto Seongwoo.

“Daniel will kill her,” he appeals.

“Doesn’t appear we have a choice,” Seongwoo sighs and walks towards Minhyun. Daniel grins as Seongwoo holds the pistol by its barrel and hands it to Minhyun. The Director refuses to touch it- he’s cringing away from it. Jonghyun lowers his head.

“Withholding the precise deadline will apply the emotional pressure more evenly. Where possible, please give me an explicit verbal indication of your anxiety levels,” says the madman. “I can’t always read them from your behaviour.”

Minhyun shakes his head, trembling.

“I can’t do this.” He tells his partner, and Seongwoo looks into his eyes. “I can’t. It’s murder.”

“This it not murder,” pleads the Governor from the floor. “It’s saving my wife’s life.”

Minhyun looks over to him nervously, running a tongue over his bottom lip.

“I’m particularly focussed on internal conflicts, where strategizing around a largely intuitive moral code appears to create a counter-intuitive result.” Daniel comments.

“I will not kill,” Minhyun closes his eyes and backs up entirely, pressing his body into the glass barrier. “I will not have blood on my hands.” Seongwoo stares at him, then nods and walks away.

“Killing my _wife_ is what you’re doing.” The Governor sobs out, hands shaking.

“Jonghyun.” Seongwoo calls, and he looks up with fatigue. He tries to steady the trembling in his hands… he hasn’t worked in _that_ field for so long… He had been trying to clean the red off his ledger for the past few years. If he shoots this man now, all his work will be undone.

This man is _innocent._ He has done nothing wrong, and-

“There will, I’m afraid, be regular prompts to create an atmosphere of urgency.” Daniel sighs. A close-up of Hyunbin’s face appears on the screen, whispering harshly: _“Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-”_ Daniel appears on the screen again, then- _“Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tock, tick-tock…”_

“Make your choice.” Daniel insists, and Jonghyun pulls himself to his feet, taking the gun. Seongwoo shoots him a sorrowful look, but there is no _time_ for apologies and sadness. He clutches the pistol, the make of the handle familiar to him.

“What’s your name?” he asks, making sure his voice doesn’t tremble, for the Governor’s sake.

“Hyunmin,” the man croaks out.

“Are you sure about this, Hyunmin?” he checks.

“Of course I’m sure!” the man snaps, and he tightens his hold.

“Nearly there.” Daniel whispers.

“Right,” he sighs. “Do you want to... pray, or anything?”

Hyunmin shakes his head once, and he glances up at the screen. Hyumin’s wife is still struggling, fighting against her bonds.

“You are a good man, and you’re doing a good thing.” Hyunmin croaks when Jonghyun pauses for too long. “Please!” The man turns around to face the screen, as if keeping his eyes on his wife. Jonghyun understands the message and moves forward, pressing the gun against the back of his head. Hyunmin jumps, letting out an ugly sob. On screen, the woman fights even harder, as if she can hear their conversation.

“I know that you’re scared, but you should also be very proud,” he whispers, then flicks off the safety.

“Just do it!”

He pats his shoulder, then stands back.

_“Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tock, tick-tock…”_

“Be quick!” Hyunmin cries.

“This is very good, JR,” Daniel notes. “I should have fitted all of you with a cardiograph.”

“Goodbye, Hyunmin.” He steadies his hand. It’s trembling- his hand has never trembled when taking a shot. But when standing so close… it doesn’t matter, does it?

_“Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tock, tick-tock…”_

“Please!” Hyunmin straightens his back, shivering. Is it fear or is it the cold? He sighs.

“I can’t,” he begins, and the man falls forward, then turns around and seizes the gun in his hands. “No, stop!”

“I’m sorry,” Hyunmin gasps. “I’m so sorry. Remember me!”

_Bang!_

Minhyun turns his head away immediately. Jonghyun stumbles away, avoiding the spray of blood. The familiar, rusty scent assaults his nose, and Seongwoo makes a gagging sound in his throat.

“Interesting,” Daniel comments. “You three did wonderful. You see, what you did there, JR…”

Jonghyun looks up in disbelief.

“..specifically because of your moral code, because you don’t want more red in your ledger: Two people are dead instead of one.”

“Two?” Minhyun questions. Daniel sighs and makes an apologetic noise, saying, “Yes, sorry. Hold on…”

There’s a bang and a muffled yelp, and the woman slides to the ground, motionless. Jonghyun closes his eyes- only he or Minhyun had to do it… which makes Hyunmin’s sacrifice worthless. Seongwoo makes a hissing sound between his teeth, and a few steps away, Minhyun makes a soft gagging sound.

“Pick up the gun, Seongwoo-hyung. You’ll need it soon,” Daniel beams, and Seongwoo hesitates in his footsteps on the way to the body. “When I tell you to use it – and I will – remember what happened this time.”

“What if I don’t want a gun?” he asks, and his brother rolls his eyes.

“Oh, the gun is intended as a mercy.”

“For whom?”

“You,” Daniel points, looking irritated. “If someone else had to die, would you really want to do it with your bare hands? It would waste valuable time.”

“Take it,” he orders, and Seongwoo steps carefully around the pool of blood to obtain the pistol. He sees his boyfriend check the barrel-

“There’s only one bullet left,” he says in astonishment, and Jonghyun presses his lips together. It will either be a test of accuracy, or one of them will die, then.

“You will only need one. But you will need it,” their captor promises with an empty smile. The door off the left side of the screen swings open, and Daniel gestures to it. “Please, go through. There’s a few tasks for you, and someone on a plane is getting very, very scared.”

Jonghyun stumbles to his feet and makes his way over, propping himself by holding the glass pane and waiting. Seongwoo has taken a step forward, but Minhyun is still motionless.

“Treats?” asks Seongwoo, quietly. Minhyun doesn’t raise his head.

“Yes. You know, a violin,” Minhyun whispers hoarsely. Seongwoo tilts his head.

“In exchange for...?”

“He’s very clever,” Minhyun explains, and Seongwoo turns to meet Jonghyun at the door, his shoes making sharp little clacks as he moves. Before he slides through the door, he turns back to Minhyun and raises his voice, “I’m beginning to think _you’re_ not.”

 _“Come on now! All aboard!”_ Hyunbin shrieks on screen. Jonghyun jumps, stumbling again against Seongwoo’s body. _“Choo-choo! Choo-choo!”_

 

There is red paint on the wall, fresh. It seems to be for their benefit- They’re in another cell similar to the first one, except that there are actually furniture. A table in the centre with no chairs- Daniel means for them to stand, then.

“As a motivator to your continued co-operation, I’m now reconnecting you,” Daniel waves from the screen that sparks to life, holding up a remote to show them how he hits the button.

 _“Fasten your seatbelts! It’s gonna be a bumpy night,”_ Hyunbin shrieks, then the screen goes back to Daniel’s watchful expression.

 _“Are- are you still there?”_ The boy’s voice comes over the speakers again, followed by a smattering of static.

“Yes, hello?” Seongwoo responds. Jonghyun tries to keep his mouth shut; the boy is panicking. If he hears more than one voice, he will become confused and flustered, so he must let Seongwoo talk to him, and only Seongwoo can talk to him. “Hello. We’re still here. Can you hear us?”

_“Yes.”_

“Everything’s gonna be alright. I just need you to tell me where you are. Outside, is it day or night?” Seongwoo questions.

_“Night.”_

“That certainly narrows it down to half the planet,” says Minhyun, who is pacing up and down the cell again. Jonghyun narrows his eyes at him and puts a finger to his lips to silence him.

“What kind of a plane are you on?”

_“Um, I don’t know.”_

Seongwoo looks to Jonghyun for help, and he gestures with his hands. His boyfriend nods, and asks, “Is it big or small?”

_“Big.”_

Jonghyun motions frantically again, and Seongwoo asks, “Are there lots of people on it?”

_“Lots and lots, but they’re all asleep. I can’t wake them up-”_

“Where did you take off from?”

_“-even the driver’s asleep.”_

“No, I understand; but where did you come from? Where did the plane take off?”

_“My nan’s.”_

“And where are you going?” Seongwoo pinches his nose bridge in frustration.

_“Home.”_

“No,” he begins, “I mean what airport are you-”

 _Click._ “Enough for now,” Daniel sings, setting the remote down, “time to play a new game.” Seongwoo stomps his foot- yes, he actually stomps his foot- and goes to the table. “Look at the table in front of you.”

“An envelope,” he murmurs, holding the white cardstock by the corner. Daniel nods encouragingly, and he opens it. There are three photographs printed on photo paper, glossy on one side and matte on the other. Jonghyun holds the table to support himself and frowns, bending over. There’s a hunting rifle strapped to the bottom of the table. “He was shot from a distance of three hundred metres with this rifle.” He undos the strap and takes out the gun, putting it on the table and inspecting it. “Now, if the police had any brains they’d realise there are three suspects, all brothers. Nathan Garrideb, Alex Garrideb and Howard Garrideb.”

Jonghyun looks up and at the photographs. Three men, in three different photographs, each holding a card with their name on it.

“All these photos are up-to-date, but which one pulled the trigger, Seongwoo?” Daniel smiles slowly, resting his head on his chin almost sleepily. “Which one?”

“What’s this?” Minhyun asks uneasily. “W-we’re supposed to solve this based on what?”

“This,” Seongwoo points to the table. “This is all we get.”

“Please, make use of your friends, hyung. I want to see you interact with people that you’re close to. Also, you may have to choose which one to keep.” At this, Jonghyun frowns and turns to look at Minhyun in puzzlement.

“What gun is this?” Seongwoo prods his stomach with his elbow gently.

“Buffalo gun,” he says crisply. “Nineteen forties, old-fashioned sight, no crosshairs.” He points to the picture of the skinny, almost anorexic looking brother with glasses. “Person who shot couldn’t have had glasses on, and your brother says he was shot from three hundred metres. Kickback from a gun of this calibre would have shattered the glasses and caused an eye injury. Obvious, even to the police. His lenses are thick, see? Couldn’t have made a clean shot without his glasses.”

“These pictures are up to date,” Daniel chirps helpfully. He nods and holds up the photograph, observing the name on the card.

“No cuts, no scarring. Not Nathan, then,” he finishes, tossing the photograph onto the floor. “Who’s next?” Seongwoo looks up at the question and shifts his eyes in Minhyun’s direction.

He’s always been a little prouder than them. Minhyun rolls his eyes and says with contempt, “Do you have a suspicion we’re being made to compete?”

“No,” he murmurs, “we’re not competing. A child is on a plane. We are the only ones who can save him. Focus, Director. We need you now.”

“Your priorities do you credit,” breathes Minhyun, as he walks towards them. Jonghyun closes his eyes.

“My priorities” he sighs, “just got a woman killed.”

“Now, as I understand it, Seongwoo-hyung, you try to repress your emotions to refine your reasoning. I’d like to see how that works, so, if you don’t mind, I’m going to apply some context to your deductions.”

A crash and whirring machinery. A shadow covers up the last of the dying sun and he turns. Daniel has three men tied up and strung like pieces of meat outside the glass pane, dangling by a cable tied to one leg.

“Oh, dear God,” Minhyun gasps, putting a hand to his mouth.

“Two of the Garridebs work here as orderlies, so getting the third along really wasn’t too difficult,” Daniel grins. “Once you bring in your verdict, let me know and justice will be done.”

“Justice?” Seongwoo questions, hesitating. “What will you do with them?”

“Early release,” Daniel blinks calmly.

“You’ll drop them into the sea,” Jonghyun corrects in horror.

“Sink, or swim,” Daniel waves a hand, “that’s the way of the world, isn’t it?”

“They’re tied up!” he bursts out, and Seongwoo’s brother nods tiredly, as if disappointed he isn’t getting the butt of some joke. Except this is no joke- the lives of three men and one child are on the line.

“Exactly! Now there is context,” he continues, beaming innocently. Jonghyun puts the rifle back onto the table and groans. “Please, continue with your deductions. I’m now focussing on the difference to your mental capacity a specified consequence can make.”

_Click._

_“We’re going through the clouds, like cotton wool,”_ the boy whispers. Seongwoo bangs one hand on the table, but his voice is surprisingly even when he asks, “Oh. That’s nice. Try to tell me more about the plane.”

_“Why won’t my mummy wake up?”_

_Click._

_“Damn,”_ Seongwoo bangs his hand on the table again in a burst of reckless anger. He closes his eyes, steadies his breathing. “So it’s got to be one of the other two.

“Now, Howard,” Seongwoo mutters under his breath. “Howard’s a lifelong drunk. Pallor of his skin, terminal gin blossoms on his red nose... and- terror notwithstanding- a bad case of the DTs. There’s no way he could have taken that shot from three hundred metres away.

“So that leaves us with Alex,” Seongwoo paces around the room, almost mirroring the path Minhyun took earlier. He has the photograph pinched between the thumb and index finger of his right hand and is looking down at it. “Indentations on the temples suggest he habitually wears glasses. Frown lines suggest a lifetime of peering.”

“He’s shortsighted, or he was. His recent laser surgery has done the trick,” Minhyun chips in reluctantly. Seongwoo shoots him a passing glance.

“Laser surgery?” he asks.

“Look at his suit. He’s made an effort.” Minhyun snaps, shuffling around and changing his weight from foot to foot.

“That’s very good,” Jonghyun murmurs.

“Excellent,” Seongwoo snaps his fingers. “Suddenly he sees himself in quite a different light now that he’s dumped the specs. Even has a spray tan. But he’s clearly not used to his new personal grooming ritual. That can be told by the state of his fingernails and the fact that there’s hair growing in his ears. So it’s a superficial job, then.

“But he got his eyes fixed. His hands were steady. He pulled the trigger,” Seongwoo’s voice hardens, and he walks briskly back to the table, slamming the photograph back on it. “He killed Evans.”

“Are you ready to condemn the prisoner?” Daniel sings.

“Seongwoo, we can’t do this,” Minhyun warns, and Jonghyun reaches across the table to touch his wrist.

“The plane,” he coaxes, “remember?”

“Hyung,” Daniel insists, “are you ready?”

“Alex,” Seongwoo whispers hoarsely.

“Say it,” Daniel insists again. “Condemn him.

“Condemn him in the knowledge of what will happen to the man you name,” Daniel look excited. Seongwoo looks out of the window, at the man with the tag ‘Alex’ and sighs, before saying, “I condemn Alex Garrideb.”

Instantly, the cables of the two other men- labelled ‘Nathan’ and ‘Howard’- are released. Jonghyun gasps as the two bodies disappear from view.

“Congratulations,” Daniel smiles, “you got the right one.”

The door off the left side of the screen opens again, and Daniel coaxes, “Now, go through the door.”

“You dropped the other two,” Minhyun’s tone is furious. “Why?”

“Interesting,” Daniel notes clinically.

 _“WHY?”_ Minhyun demands.

“Does it really make a difference, killing the innocent instead of the guilty?” Daniel looks down at his lap thoughtfully, as if solving a particularly difficult math question. “Let’s see.” He hits a button, and the three of them turn to look out of the glass window to see the man labelled ‘Alex’ drop to the sea. “No. That felt pretty much the same.”

“Minhyun,” Jonghyun reminds quietly, “don’t let him distract you.”

 _“Distract_ me?” Minhyun stumbles on his feet, and Jonghyun steadies him, pushing him towards the door.

Before he steps out of the room, he looks back at Daniel’s disinterested expression. The man stretches and opens his mouth wide, exactly like a kitten ready to pounce.

 

**MINHYUN**

“I’ll give you one minute on the phone.”

_Click._

_“-frightened. I’m really frightened.”_

“It’s okay, don’t worry,” Seongwoo hums comfortingly. “ I don’t have very long with you, so I just need you to tell me what you can see outside the plane.”

_“Just the sea. I can see the sea.”_

“Are there ships on it, darling?” Seongwoo puts a smile into his voice.

_“No ships. I can see lights in the distance.”_

“Is it a city?” Seongwoo looks up and stares at him.

_“I think so.”_

“He’s about to fly over a city in a pilotless plane,” Minhyun breathes quietly. “We’ll have to talk him through it.”

Jonghyun furrows his brow, hissing, “Through what?”

_“Hello? Are you still there?”_

“Still here. Just give us a minute, okay?” Seongwoo looks at Minhyun in shock, and he continues to explain, “Getting the plane away from any mainland, any populated areas. It has to crash in the sea.”

“What about the child?” Jonghyun asks.

“Well, obviously, Doctor, he’s the one who’s going to crash it,” he clenches his fist. Jonghyun shakes his head, murmuring, “W-we could help him land it.”

“And if we fail, and he crashes into a city?” he questions furiously, seizing Jonghyun’s arm and holding on tight. “How many will die then? You are a doctor, Jonghyun. Do you save the elderly woman with brain damage and a waiting room filled with family, or the young, pregnant woman who’s suffered trauma to her stomach?”

Jonghyun freezes over.

“How are we gonna get him to do that?” Seongwoo hisses. He looks down into the gaping chasm of the coffin and hates himself for saying these words, “ I’m afraid we’re going to have to give him hope.”

“Is there really no-one there that can help you?” Seongwoo raises his voice, staring at Minhyun straight in the eyes. Seongwoo looks pained. “Have you really, really checked?”

_“Everyone’s asleep. Will you help me?”_

“We’re going to do everything that we can, okay, darling?” Seongwoo coaxes, and Minhyun notices that there is a tremor in his voice.

_“I’m scared. I’m really scared.”_

“It’s alright,” Seongwoo closes his eyes, controlling himself. “I-”

_Click._

“Back to the matter at hand,” Daniel begins cheerfully, “there is a coffin in front of you.”

“Someone is going to die,” Minhyun notes. Daniel gives him a nod and cheers, “Bingo! This round is for Seongwoo-hyung, of course. I think the death will be,” a smile, “the most tragic for a while.

“So many days not lived, so many words unsaid,” Daniel muses, “et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

“This will be their coffin, I assume?” Seongwoo asks, and Daniel nods generously.

“Please, start your deductions. I will apply some context in a moment.”

From the corner of his eye, Minhyun sees Jonghyun shake himself and come back to normal, as if waking from a dream. Or a nightmare, in this context.

“A large coffin,” Seongwoo’s words are so loud they make him jump, “intended for someone six feet tall. Speaking from statistic probability, a man.”

“A simple coffin, but made of wood easy to burn” Minhyun touches the plain wood; it isn’t even polished, “so someone who is practical about death. Acquainted with the process of death but unsentimental about the necessity of disposal. Also, the lining of the coffin-”

“Just look at the plaque on the lid,” Jonghyun hefts the lid over and puts it on top of the coffin. The three of them peer to observe the words etched onto the gold: ‘I LOVE YOU’.

“It’s for someone who loves you,” Minhyun sighs. Seongwoo frowns, looking up at them. “Think, Seongwoo. It’s not a long list.”

“Besides the two of us, maybe Jaehwan?” Jonghyun ponders, then shakes his head. “He’s too short, though.”

“No,” Seongwoo murmurs, and Minhyun glances at him at his tone, “it’s Guanlin.”

 _“Guanlin?”_ Jonghyun chokes out, looking surprised. Minhyun remembers the kid being the one who told them Seongwoo was dead, but Jonghyun has a closer relationship with him.

“Six feet tall, practical about death,” Seongwoo continues, looking at his brother with disgust, “and he used to have a crush on me.”

“Used to?” Daniel echoes, grinning. “You should check your sources, Seongwoo. He’s perfectly safe for the moment.” The image of him on the screen fizzles out to show four frames, each showing a familiar silhouette at a kitchen counter. “His flat is rigged to explode in approximately three minutes-” Seongwoo closes his eyes, “-unless I hear the release code from him lips. I’m calling him on your phone. Make him say it.”

“Say what?” he asks uneasily, and Jonghyun groans.

“It should be obvious,” Daniel says in disappointment. “What’s on the plaque, of course.

“Oh, one important restriction,” he adds, finger hovering above a button on his stupid remote, “you’re not allowed to mention in any way at all that his life is in danger. You may not – at any point – suggest that there is any form of crisis. If you do, I will end this session and his life. Are we clear?”

Seongwoo brings his palms together and to his lips, then nods once. The sound of the phone dialling sounds throughout the room, and Jonghyun’s foot gives way. Minhyun catches him by the elbow, but Seongwoo doesn’t spare them a glance and instead fixes his eyes on the countdown in the centre of the screen.

 _“Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tock, tick-tock…”_ Hyunbin’s voice sounds over the speakers, and Jonghyun jerks slightly in his grasp. The phone connects and over on Guanlin’s end, the phone begins to ring. Guanlin looks over, glancing at the display.

At the sight of the name, he frowns and turns the phone over, going back to whatever he was doing.

“What’s he doing?” Seongwoo demands, turning to him for an answer. Minhyun shrugs.

“He’s making tea,” he comments, and Seongwoo frowns.

“I can see that,” he snaps, “but why isn’t he picking up?”  
“You never pick up your phone,” Jonghyun mutters, and Seongwoo’s frown worsens into a scowl.

“Yeah.” he argues, “but it’s _me_ calling.” The phone goes straight to voicemail.

 _“Hi, this is Guanlin,”_ Jonghyun bites his lip in worry, _“in the dead centre of town. Call you back later; leave a message.”_

_Click._

“Okay,” Daniel’s voice is disappointed, “one more time.”

The sound of the phone dialling rings over the speaker again, and Guanlin looks up one more time in annoyance before going to pick the phone up.

“Yes!” Seongwoo cheers softly, then Guanlin swipes right.

 _“Seongwoo-sunbaenim,”_ Guanlin’s voice is crackling, _“is this urgent? I’m not having a good day.”_

“Guanlin,” Seongwoo replies softly, intensely, “I need you to do something for me.”

 _“Please don’t tell me this is one of your games,”_ Minhyun watches with interest, _“I’m not in the mood.”_

“I need you to help me,” Seongwoo exhales and closes his eyes, “please.”

 _“I’m not at the lab,”_ Guanlin protests, and Jonghyun shrugs free of his hand, going to stand closer to the screen. Seongwoo stutters, “It’s- it’s not that-”

_“Then what is it, Seongwoo? Say it, quickly.”_

Jonghyun looks back when Seongwoo falls silent, gesturing agitatedly to the countdown screen. They’ve got a minute and twenty seconds to go.

_“Seongwoo-hyung?”_

Seongwoo opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.

 _“Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tock, tick-tock…”_ Hyunbin hisses, and that seems to kick him back into action.

“Say these words for me, without asking why, please,” he begs.

 _“What words?”_ Guanlin asks, uncertain.

“Tell me,” Seongwoo exhales, “‘I love you’.”

Instantly, Guanlin’s hand knocks over the cup of tea. The cup rolls off the counter and shatters on the floor, mirroring the man’s expression. He looks _broken,_ haunted.

 _“That’s-”_ he stutters- _“that’s not funny.”_

“It’s not funny,” Seongwoo has his hands out in front of him, almost defensively. Minhyun glances over the clock. One minute to go. Guanlin’s hand shoots up to remove the phone from his ear, but Seongwoo shouts, “STOP! Do _not_ hang up-”

“Carefully, Seongwoo,” Daniel warns.

 _“You’re making fun of me,”_ Guanlin’s voice is shaking, but at least he’s put his hand back on the table. _“Why?”_

“Just _listen-”_

“Softly, Seongwoo!”

“-this, uh,” Seongwoo drums his fingers on the coffin, “it’s for an experiment-”

_“I’m not an experiment, Seong-”_

“You’re not! You’re not, I’m sorry, it came out wrong-” Seongwoo backtracks, and Jonghyun holds up five fingers- fifty seconds to go. “Just please, say those words for me.”

_“I can’t.”_

“You can,” Seongwoo coaxes- he’s got a smile in his voice again, although it looks a little pained. “It’s very important. I can’t say why, but I promise you it is. I _need_ you to do this for me, Guanlin. I’ll beg, if you want me to.”

_“I can’t say that. I can’t... I can’t say that to you.”_

“Of course you can. Why can’t you?”

 _“You_ know _why.”_

“I don’t-” Seongwoo looks to Jonghyun for an explanation, and the man turns away.

 _“Of course you do.”_   
“Please, just say it,” Seongwoo pleads. Jonghyun holds up four fingers. _“Why can’t you just_ say _it, Guanlin?”_

 _“Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tock, tick-tock…”_ Hyunbin’s murmurs.

 _“Because… it’s true,”_ Guanlin’s voice is wavering.

Seongwoo’s mouth snaps shut, and he looks flustered.

_“It’s true, Seongwoo.”_

Jonghyun shakes a fist in his direction, and Seongwoo steels himself. His voice is cold when he says, “Well, if it’s true, say it.”

 _“You fucking asshole,”_ Guanlin gasps out, and Minhyun cringes. _“You say it, then. Go on. You say it first.”_

Seongwoo is gaping in shock now, and he says weakly, “What?”

 _“You say it, if you want me to,”_ Guanlin vents angrily, and Jonghyun whirls away from his prime spot to stand in front of Seongwoo. _“Say it like you mean it.”_ Minhyun puts a hand out to stop him, but Jonghyun slaps his hand away and uses the other hand to slap Seongwoo in the face. _“What was that sound?”_

“Hey!” Daniel argues, but Seongwoo’s voice cuts through the chaos.

“I love you,” he murmurs, “I love you.” They have ten seconds left, and Guanlin sighs, nearly dropping the phone. “Guanlin?”

Guanlin lifts the phone away from his ear and looks down at it. Five seconds. For one moment, it looks like he’s going to hang up, but he lifts the microphone of the phone to his mouth and responds, sadly, “I love you.”

Seongwoo rears back, looking at the countdown in panic. The numbers blink a few times, signalling the stop of the countdown, and Minhyun sighs in relief. On screen, Guanlin hasn’t moved, but he moves the phone away from his mouth and swipes left.

_Click._

“Seongwoo,” Jonghyun begins, but the man looks up and says strongly, “I did it.

“I did it, Daniel,” he says firmly. “I won. I won, and you lost.”

The screen fizzles out, and Daniel comes on screen. There’s a final frame in the top left hand corner showing Guanlin’s tall frame collapsing on itself. The man sits on the floor, among the shattered remains of his cup.

Daniel has _emotion_ in his eyes, Minhyun notes. They’re slightly watery, as if he’s been touched.

“I saved Lai Guanlin,” Seongwoo shouts suddenly, and Minhyun backs away from him. “Let me talk to the child!  
“Saved?” the emotion is erased from Daniel’s eyes, showing the familiar emotionless black irises. “Who did you save, Seongwoo? Look at what you’ve done to poor, poor Guanlin.

“And look, at what you’ve done to yourself,” Daniel hums and makes disapproving sounds. Seongwoo looks up, the expression on his face vulnerable. “Oh, do be sensible. There were no explosives in his little house. Why would I be so clumsy? You didn’t win. You lost.”

Seongwoo makes a small groaning sound, and the frown on Daniel’s face hardens.

“All those complicated little emotions; I lost count,” he sighs. “Emotional context, Seongwoo. It destroys you every time.” The door slides open on the right hand side. “Now, please, pull yourself together. I need you at peak efficiency. The next one isn’t going to be so easy.”

Very slowly, Seongwoo drops the gun on the floor, unbuttons his jacket and collapses on his knees.

“In your own time,” Daniel chirps, and the screen blacks out.

“Seongwoo?” Minhyun asks, approaching him. He stops when Seongwoo holds out one hand. Very suddenly, he shoots up on his feet and seizes the lid of the coffin. Jonghyun flinches and darts away, just as Seongwoo brings the lid down, hard, on the body of the coffin.

The wood splinters, and Minhyun ducks as pieces of it fly off with every time Seongwoo brings the lid down.

 

“Look,” Minhyun interrupts after an hour of silence, “I know this is difficult and I know you’re being tortured, but you have got to keep it together.”

“This isn’t torture; this is vivisection,” Seongwoo says flatly. “We’re experiencing science from the perspective of lab rats.”

Jonghyun pushes himself upright and walks over to Seongwoo, holding his hand out.

“We have to go,” he says firmly, and his boyfriend takes the hand. “We’ll make it out, all of us.”

Minhyun purses his lips. Personally, he thinks it is unlikely.

 

**JONGHYUN**

The next room is grey and drab, with absolutely nothing in it.

“Did he run out of ideas?” Minhyun asks in distaste. “There’s nothing in here.”

“It’s not empty, Minhyun.” Daniel fizzles to life on the screen, then addresses his next words to Seongwoo. “You’ve still got the gun, haven’t you? I told you you’d need it, because only two can play the next game. Just two of you go on from here; your choice.” Daniel grins and tilts his head comically to one side. “It’s make-your-mind-up time. Whose help do you need the most – Jonghyun’s or Minhyun’s?”

Seongwoo’s mouth falls open a little, and he looks impossibly flustered. Jonghyun looks over and notices that his hands have begun to tremble. He turns his attention to Minhyun: the man isn’t even looking at him, but has his jaw tightened.

“It’s an elimination round. You choose one and kill the other.” Daniel leans forward in anticipation. “You have to choose between the old friend and the new friend, or the new lover and the old lover. Who will you choose, Seongwoo?

“The doctor,” Daniel’s voice sings, “or the director?”

_“Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-”_

“That is _enough,_ Daniel!” Minhyun bursts out, throwing a poisonous look at the screen. Daniel lets out a delighted huff of air when he sees him.

“Not yet, I think,” he smiles, “but nearly. Remember, there’s a plane in the sky, and it’s not going to land.”

Minhyun sighs and steps closer to Seongwoo, bringing his fingers to massage at his temples.

“Well?” he demands, and Seongwoo raises his eyebrows.

“Well, what?” he echoes, and Minhyun scowls.

“Does this even need a discussion?” he continues. “There’s no question who has to continue from here. It’s us; you and me.”

Jonghyun’s heart ices over.

“Whatever lies ahead requires brainpower, Seongwoo, not sentiment. Don’t prolong his agony; shoot him,” Minhyun gives him one last glance, then gestures violently. “Shoot him, Seongwoo!”

None of them move, and Minhyun sighs despairingly.

“It’s always been you and me, Seongwoo,” he reminds stoically. “Jonghyun is different from us; we’ve discussed this before.”

Jonghyun bites his lips.

“He’s right,” he says flatly, “I have to go.”

“See?” Minhyun agrees.

“Shoot me in the back of the head,” Jonghyun advices, turning around, “it hurts less.”

He has to save two out of three of them, at least, he muses. It’s not a bad way to go. He’s with the people he loves the most in the entire world- He’s cleaned the red off his ledger, he’s made up for all the lives he took. He’s travelled the world, finished his studies, become a new person with a new agenda… He’s done what a lot of people haven’t.

It’s not a bad way to go.

“Hurry up, Seongwoo,” Minhyun’s voice sounds echoey to his ears, “then we can get to work.”

There’s an exhale, and Jonghyun glances back to see Seongwoo turn away.

“God!” Minhyun gasps. “ I should have expected this.  Pathetic. You always were the slow one-”

Seongwoo raises one eyebrow, rolling his eyes.

“-the stupidest out of all of us.” It’s clear that Minhyun is not talking about them anymore, he’s talking about a trio of boys and a dog surrounding a body on the floor. “Even back then, you could have trained your gun hand back. You could have accounted for the lack of accuracy, but all you did was run away.

“This is why I always disliked you. You’re _weak,”_ Minhyun breathes. “Look at him! What is he to you?

“Nothing more than a distraction; a little scrap of ordinariness for you to impress, to dazzle with your cleverness,” Jonghyun looks at the floor, “you’ll find another.”

The words hurt, more than they should. But that’s always been the curse of his life- feeling things other people didn’t feel, crying when others remained stoic. A tear slips down his cheek, and he brushes it away in annoyance.

“Ignore everything he just said,” Seongwoo growls out. The grip on the gun is tight. “He’s being kind.”

 _Oh._ Minhyun’s lips quirk, and he scratches his head.

“I was never an actor,” he professes with a genteel smile. “Looks like you still have some brains, Seongwoo.”

“He’s trying to make it easy for me to kill him,” Seongwoo continues, then turns back to face them and points the gun at Minhyun, “which is why it’s going to make this even harder.”

“Don’t,” he whispers.

“Not in the face, though, please. I’ve promised my brain to the Royal Society,” Minhyun’s words are stumbling over themselves, and he interrupts, “I won’t allow this, Minhyun.”

His lover looks over with a sad grin.

“But Jonghyun,” he mumbles, “it’s not your choice to make.”

“Where would you suggest?” Seongwoo voice is trembling, and Minhyun looks back at him.

“Well,” Minhyun yanks off his tie, “I suppose there is a heart somewhere inside me,” he unbuttons his shirt and tosses it onto the floor. “I don’t imagine it’s much of a target but…” Behind them, Jonghyun briefly registers that Daniel is not looking at the screen, but is instead looking into his lap. Seongwoo makes a mild choking noise. “...why don’t we try for that?”

“I,” he interrupts again, going to Seongwoo and trying to grab the gun. Seongwoo just raises the pistol above his head, making his frantic grabs for it useless. “I won’t _allow_ this, Minhyun!” He steps back and screams into Seongwoo’s face, “I’ve had one of the two people I love die in front of me, I will _not see another die!”_

Seongwoo looks distraught, but Minhyun says, “Hyunbin. He was Daniel’s Christmas present.”

“Christmas present?” he echoes.

“Five minutes. Five minutes of conversation,” Minhyun closes his eyes, “unsupervised.” Seongwoo’s hand shakes, and he drops the gun before fumbling for it. Jonghyun is frozen; he lets him pick it up. “Goodbye, lovers mine,” Minhyun opens his eyes and shuffles on his feet ruefully. “No flowers… by request.”

“Kwon Hyunbin thought you would make this choice,” Daniel says. “He was so excited.”

 _“And here we are, at the end of the line. Old friends killing each other,”_ Hyunbin croons. _“This is where I get off.”_ He offers a wave to the camera and smiles one last time, then the video fades out to show Daniel’s watchful expression.

“Five minutes…” Seongwoo whispers, lifting his eyes to gaze at his brother. “Five minutes for him to do all this to us.”

Jonghyun starts towards Minhyun- what is he going to do? He doesn’t know, except for a strong _knowing_ that he _must_ die. He will die. He must die, and he will die-

“Well, not on my watch,” Seongwoo sighs and brings the muzzle of the gun to the hollow of his throat. “Ten.”

“What are you doing?” he asks in bewilderment, taking a step forward. Seongwoo glares.

“Don’t move,” he warns him, then looks back up at Daniel. “Keep your eyes fixed on me, brother. Nine.”

“You can’t do this, Seongwoo!” Daniel protests, rising on his feet. “You _can’t!”_

“Eight.”

“You don’t know about Redbeard yet!”

“Seven.”

“Seongwoo!”

“Six.”

“The game isn’t over!”

“Five.”

“Seongwoo, stop that at _once!”_

_ZAP!_

“Four…”

_ZAP! ZAP!_

“Three……”

“Two………”

The last thing Jonghyun sees is Seongwoo slumping sideways.

He didn’t shoot, he thinks, then he slides into the darkness.

**SEONGWOO**

He’s six and running on the beach.

“Redbeard!” he calls, laughing and twirling. Minhyun is struggling to catch up with them, already huffing and puffing. Daniel is standing in the sea, arms crossed and eyes dark as he watches them. He opens his mouth-

_“Hello?”_

_“Hello? Are you still there?”_

He groans and pushes himself up, palms meeting wood.

_“Hello?”_

“I’m here,” he sits up. The boy’s voice seems to be coming from the left side of the earpiece he has on. The right side is silent.

_“You went away. You said you’d help me and you went away.”_

“I know,” he coughs, “I’m sorry about that. We-we-we must have got cut off. Um… How-how-how long was I away?”

_“Hours. Hours and hours. Why don’t grown-ups tell the truth?”_

“No, I- I am telling the truth. You can trust me.”

“Where did you go?”

“I don’t know,” he says, looking at his surroundings. There are metal bars on the ceilings with a full moon shining down at him. He’s sitting on top of a table, so he slides his legs off that and stands shakily on two feet. “You’ve got to be really brave for me, okay?” He picks up a lantern lighted with a single candle and walks around. “Go to the front of the plane.”

“The front?”

“Where the driver is, darling,” he mutters, poking around. So he’s in a box, with four wooden walls. There are photos hung up, childhood photos. He remembers a stuffy collar and a grubby hand in his.

“Okay.”

“Are you there yet?” he asks distractedly, removing one of the frames. It’s a picture of him with a faded tux in his father’s lap.

 _“Yeah, I’m here,”_ Jonghyun’s voice comes from the right side of the earpiece, and he jumps, dropping the frame.

“Jonghyun!” he gasps. “Where are you?”

 _“I don’t know,”_ Jonghyun responds. _“I’m standing on stone and I’ve got water up to my waist. My feet are cuffed to the bottom.”_

“Is Minhyun with you?” he asks, picking up the frame and putting it back on the wall.

_“No.”_

“Okay, I was talking to the boy just now-”

 _“He’s still up there?”_ Jonghyun demands.

“Yeah,” he sighs again,“the plane will keep flying until it runs out of fuel.”

 _“Fucking barbaric,”_ Jonghyun growls out, and Seongwoo pokes around the wall a little more. _“Seongwoo, I found something.”_ There’s a slight draft coming in.

“What is it?” he asks, holding the lantern with his right hand and stretching his left hand so it comes into contact with something- cool and smooth. Metal.

 _“Bones, Seongwoo,”_ Jonghyun murmurs, voice painted in shock. _“These, these are bones. Small ones.”_

He holds on to the metal as he retracts his hand. It’s a shallow bowl, and as he turns it over, there are the words ‘REDBEARD’ scratched on the side with a sharp object in a child’s handwriting.

“Redbeard,” he breathes. It’s a dog bowl.

 _“Who’s Redbeard?”_ the boy inquires, and he jumps, letting go of the bowl and letting it clatter noisily onto the floor. Emptily, he responds flatly, “Are you in the front of the plane now?”

_“Yes. I still can’t wake the driver up.”_

“That’s alright, darling,” he continues, putting his hands to his face and pressing the warmth of his palms into his eyes. There’s a faint throbbing in the back of his head, insistent. “Can you see anything that looks like a radio?”

_“I’m looking.”_

“Look faster,” he says in exasperation, then controls his voice again when the boy says he can find nothing. “It’s okay, what can you-” He cuts himself off when what sounds like alarms interrupt him. “What was that? What’s happening?”

_“The whole plane is shaking.”_

“It’s just turbulence,” he soothes. “What do you see outside the window?”

Tearfully, the boy says, _“A river. My ears hurt.”_

“Does the river look like it’s getting closer, darling?” he questions, sinking to his knees. He’s getting a little colder now, actually. He holds the lantern out so he can find the dog bowl, fingers searching in the darkness.

_“Yes.”_

“That’s alright then,” he whispers, “it means you’re nearly home.”

 _“Seongwoo,”_ Jonghyun says insistently, and he hums. “I’m in the bottom of a well.”

He frowns. Why would there be a well in Imjado- where the plumbing is state of the art and freshwater pipes leading from the mainland- His fingers make contact with not metal, but wood, and a little gap. There’s a gap between the planks of wood making up the one of the four walls and the floor. Hastily, he scrambles on his feet and puts the lantern down on the floor.

“Buildings aren’t built with gaps,” he tells himself, then places two hands against the wall and _pushes-_

The wall falls away, almost like the set of a filming scene. He steps out of the box and walks forward, spotting the familiar cemetery on his left and his childhood apartment complex further upstreet, on the same side of the road.

“Daniel brought me home,” he hisses softly and beginning the trek up to the complex. It’s at night, a small breeze drifting down the sidewalk and making his hairs stand on end. He glances to the side, where the gravestone that has been haunting his dreams mocks him once more.

_NEMO_

_HOLMES_ _  
_ _1617 - 1822_   
Aged 32 Years

 _“Kwon Hyunbin and I got along like a house on fire-”_ Daniel says offhandedly, his voice coming from both sides of the earpiece. He opens the front door and stands in the lift lobby, breathing in the scent of disuse. Seongwoo resists the urge to tear his earpiece out… there’s a memory blooming up in his mind.

_“Daddy, why are we running?”_

_“Some people think Niel burned our house, Seongwoo-yah. We’ve got to protect him, so take the ball and go bring you brother to sit in the backseat.”_

He gasps, clutching at his head. The throbbing at the back of his head intensifies, and he turns away from the lifts to stare at himself in the dusty mirror.

 _“-which naturally, made me think of home,”_ Daniel’s voice is amused. _“Home sweet home, Seongwoo.”_

“I don’t care,” he chokes out. “The plane!”

 _“Sweet old Hyunbin-ie,”_ his brother continues, _“he was never very interested in being alive, especially if he could make more trouble being dead.”_

“The plane!” he gasps, and Daniel makes a clucking sound.

 _“You knew he’d take his revenge. His revenge apparently is_ me.”

“Niel,” he warns, “let me talk to the boy, and I’ll play any game you want.”

 _“Not so easy, Seongwoo-hyung,”_ his brother has a smile in his voice, and it’s a nasty one. _“First, find Redbeard.”_ Daniel’s face fizzles to life on the mirror, matching his. He watches in horror as his face melds into his brother’s. “I’m letting the water in now. You don’t want me to drown another one of your pets, do you?”

 _“Seongwoo?”_ Jonghyun’s voice is reedy with panic.

“Your very first case! And the final problem,” Daniel smiles sympathetically. “I think this one means more to you than Redbeard. You should work harder.” He opens his mouth and begins to sing.

_I that am lost / Oh, who will find me / Deep down below-_

The boy screams, and he jerks.

_The old beech tree?_

He paces up and down, returning his gaze to the mirror. There’s a video of Jonghyun from a bird’s eye’s view, showing him struggling.

“Jonghyun?” he asks, heart in his throat. “Jonghyun!”

_Help succour me now/ The East Winds blow_

_“Seongwoo?”_

_Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go!_

_“Help me!”_ the boy yowls and lets out a shriek. _“Help me, please!”_

_Be not afraid…_

_“It’s flooding,”_ Jonghyun says calmly. _“Seongwoo?”_

“How long can you hold your breath?” he asks, putting both hands to his head.

 _“Three minutes, four tops,”_ Jonghyun’s voice seems to be crackling. _“Hurry up! The water’s to my waist, and I’m standing up already!”_

“I’m trying,” he gasps out-

 _“The whole plane is shaking!”_ the boy howls, and he makes absent minded soothing sounds, before returning his gaze to the image projected on the mirror.

“You said the answer was in the song,” he says softly, intensely. “I went through the song all those years ago, and they never made any sense!

“I found nothing. I couldn’t find anything. And there-there was a beech tree in the grounds and I dug,” he puts his hands over his eyes again, and Daniel stops singing. “I dug and dug and dug and dug. Sixteen feet by six; sixteen yards; sixteen metres – and I found nothing. No-one.”

_“Seongwoo-”_

“It was a clever little puzzle, wasn’t it? So why couldn’t you work it out, Seongwoo-hyung?” Daniel’s eyes are like bottomless pits, and Seongwoo sees the broken reflection of himself peeking through the image of Daniel’s plucked eyebrows and white shirt.

 _“Think harder,”_ a familiar voice admonishes, and he shuts his eyes. In his mind palace, Kid-Minhyun is standing in front of him with his arms crossed and frowning disapprovingly.

 _“Seongwoo,”_ Jonghyun interrupts, and his eyes shoot open, _“there is something you need to know. The bones I found.”_

“They’re Redbeard’s bones,” he says.

“Emotional context,” Daniel murmurs, lips spreading into a feral grin, “and _here-e-e-e-e_ it comes!”

_“Minhyun lied to both of us.”_

Seongwoo frowns.

“Remember Daddy’s allergy? What was he allergic to?” Daniel is almost vibrating with excitement. “What would he never let you have all those times you begged? Well, he’d _never_ let you have a dog.”

He closes his eyes. He’s on the beach again. Daniel has a little toy aeroplane in his hand and is swinging it around while standing thigh-deep in seawater. A dog’s bark interrupts him, and he sees Redbeard run towards him, with Minhyun trailing behind tiredly.

“What a funny little memory, hyung,” Daniel’s voice sounds foggy, far away. “You were upset, so you told yourself a better story.” Redbeard halts, and turns to face Daniel. His brother lowers the aeroplane so he can stare at the dog with hate in his eyes. “But we _never_ had a dog.”

 _“They’re… they’re human bones, Seongwoo,”_ Jonghyun continues, voice wavering. He blinks, unseeingly, into the past. The dog is replaced by a short boy with chestnut hair parted cleanly in the middle, with porcelain skin and a beautiful singing voice. Focusing on the mirror, he sees Jonghyun lift a small human skull out of the water.

“Sungwoon,” he breathes.

“Now, it’s coming,” Daniel says softly, tenderly.

“Ha Sungwoon,” he remembers, and the little boy with chestnut hair continues his journey, turning back to face him and running towards him again. His eyes drift to Daniel, still standing motionless in the sea- his eyes are emotionless. “We played pirates; I was Yellowbeard and he was-”

_“Let’s be pirates when we grow up!”_

“-Redbeard,” he finishes, a sob sneaking its way into his voice.

“You were inseparable,” Daniel reccounts darkly, then his expression smooths over into something a little more vulnerable, “but I wanted to play too.”

“Oh, God-” he bends over and puts his hands on his knees, curling up. His chest heaves. “Oh, _God!_ What-What did you do?”

Daniel tilts his head and begins to sing:

_I that am lost /_

_Oh, who will find me /_

_Deep down below_

_The old beech tree-_

“You killed him,” he weeps, dragging the back of his hand across his face. “You _killed_ my best friend.”

“You had a best friend, Seongwoo,” Daniel spits, eyes the darkest he’s seen yet, and _angry._ “I had _no one.”_

_Young Daniel smiles when he sees him looking, waving the aeroplane in the air._

_“Play with me, hyung! Play with me!” he shrieks, lips curving up in a smile. Young Seongwoo shakes his head and holds a hand out to Sungwoon._

“No one,” Daniel repeats self-pityingly. _“No one.”_

 _“You’ve got to remember, Seongwoo-ya.”_ The voice that has plagued his nightmares but is so horribly familiar… it’s his.

_NEMO_

_HOLMES_ _  
_ _1617 - 1822_   
Aged 32 Years

 _Nemo._ He gasps, and brings his hands away from his face. His fingers ar still trembling, but he focuses. ‘Nemo’ is latin for… ‘no one’.

“Okay,” he growls out, scrubbing at his face frantically. “Let’s play, Niel.” He turns and picks up the lantern, overturned on the floor. The candle still flickers, and he hurries out of the lobby and onto the sidewalk, turning right to rush to the cemetery.

_“Hello, are you still there?”_

“Need your help, darling, I’m trying to solve a puzzle,” he pauses by the tombstone in front.

“But what about the plane?”

“Well, the puzzle will fix the plane,” he puts his hands on the stone and smooths over it, trying to find a defect- _something._

There’s another tombstone behind it, inclined at an angle. He raises himself from the crouch he’s set into and scrambles over to it. The dates on that one read:

_1818_

_Aged 24 and 26 years._

“The wrong dates. He used the wrong dates on the gravestones as the key to the cipher,” he holds his lantern out to the first stone, “and the cipher was the song.”

 _“Will you_ hurry _up?”_ Jonghyun’s voice is irritated, almost too calm.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” he retorts, shining his lantern out. The lights of the cemetery flicker on suddenly, and he thanks whichever God is listening, running to the tombstone that reads:

_134 - 1719_

“Numbers,” he hisses, putting all the numbers from the three tombstones- three, of course. One for Sungwoon, one for Minhyun, and one for Seongwoo- in his head.

_“The light are getting closer.”_

“Hush, darling, I’m working,” he shushes, rearranging the numbers over and over again. There’s got to be _something._ Maybe the numbers of the flight number… No. Daniel said to find Redbeard, which meant to find where Jonghyun was. He shouts once in irritation. The song- the song! What were the lyrics? He dives back into his mind palace, where Kid-Minhyun is waiting with his arms still crossed.

“What are the lyrics?” he demands, and Kid-Minhyun rolls his eyes before opening his mouth and singing in Daniel’s voice:

_I that am lost, oh who will find me?_

_Deep down below the old beech tree_

_Help succour me now the east winds blow_

_Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go!_

 

_Without your love, he’ll be gone before_

_Save pity for strangers, show love the door._

_My soul seek the shade of my willow’s bloom_

_Inside, brother mine -_

_Let Death make a room._

“Matching,” he tries, “match the numbers to the letters? No, words of the song.”

1   3    4 

I am lost

17 19 

Help me

28  

Brother

“I… am… lost… help… me… brother… save… my... life… before… my… doom,” he pauses for breath, then runs for more numbers. “I…. am… lost… without… your… love… save… my… soul…” Seongwoo pauses again, then straightens back up to glance back home, while mouthing the words, “seek… my… room.”

_“Seongwoo…”_

_“We’re going to crash! We’re going to die!”_

He stills.

Boy on an aeroplane, lost. Doomed. He closes his eyes. Daniel standing in the water, a toy aeroplane held in his hand. He opens his eyes, and starts to run home.

“I think it’s time you told me your name,” he huffs out, slamming the door to the lobby open and hitting the stairs. He remembers: third floor, apartment in the corner.

 _“I’m not allowed to tell my name to strangers,”_ the boy remains stubborn, and Seongwoo bursts through the front door, which has been left unlocked. His hand freezes when he puts in on the doorknob. “But I’m not a stranger, am I?” he questions, then tightens his grip and swings the door open. “I’m your brother.”

Daniel is sitting in the little chair, legs folded and ankles brushing the floor. He has his eyes closed, and is dressed in the very same white shirt. Seongwoo glances around the room. There’s a camera placed in front of his brother on a little shelving unit.

“I’m here, Niel,” he breathes.

“You’re playing with me, hyung,” Daniel’s voice is childlike. “We’re playing the game.”

“Yes,” he murmurs, placing two hands in front of him and moving closer. “The song was never a set of directions.”

“I’m in the plane,” Daniel mumbles, starting to rock a little back and forth, “I’m going to crash, and you’re going to save me.”

“Look how brilliant you are. Your mind has created the perfect metaphor. You’re high above us, all alone in the sky, and you understand everything except how to land.” Seongwoo settles down in front of his brother, mirroring the way he’s crossed his legs. Gently, he reaches out to place one finger on his thigh. “Now, I’m just an idiot, but I’m on the ground.” He inches his finger forward and wraps his hand around Daniel’s. “I can bring you home.”

“No,” Daniel’s next words are said with his adult voice, “no, no. It’s too late, Seongwoo.”

“No it’s not,” he soothes, “it’s not too late.”

“Every time I close my eyes, I’m on the plane. I’m lost, lost in the sky and... no-one can hear me,” Daniel’s expression contorts, becoming closed off. A little sob escapes from his mouth.

“Open your eyes. I’m here,” he commands, his voice a mixture of softness and hardness he never knew he had. Daniel’s eyes snap forward at his tone, and he understands why. He sounds just alike to how _he_ had sounded merely hours before. “You’re not lost any more.” Very slowly, he leans closer to his brother and embraces him, guiding his head to rest on his shoulder and running his fingers through his hair.

“You just went the wrong way last time, that’s all,” he swallows a sob. “But you’ve got to get it right this time.” He pulls back from the embrace, and Daniel leans closer, like he’s trying to prolong the moment. “Tell me how to save my friend.

“Daniel,” he says quickly, sternly, and his brother’s eyes dart up. “Help me save the doctor.”

 

**JONGHYUN**

He sputters a little on the water, trying to push himself up above the water level, but the stones of the walls are slick and worn with moss. A bright light shines overhead, and a rope is flung down. He moves aside to avoid getting whipped in the face, then grabs onto the rope to push himself up. Like this, he’s still got a little bit of allowance before the water overcomes him.

“Hold on, Doctor!” A familiar voice cries. _Jaehwan,_ he thinks sleepily. _Jaehwan._

 

**JAEHWAN**

“I spoke to Minhyun,” Jaehwan says ruefully, passing him a mug of hot chocolate. He’s got a blanket on for shock, and Seongwoo adjusts his own.

“How is he?” he asks, draining the mug and passing it back. Jaehwan dangles the empty mug in his hands, rolling it between his palms.

“A little shaken up,” he reports, “Daniel locked him up in his old jail cell.”

“The little asshole deserves it,” Seongwoo rants, and Jonghyun reaches out one hand to slap him upside the head. “Ow!” Jonghyun shoots him a glare, and Seongwoo opens his mouth.

“Minhyun…” he addresses Jaehwan, “isn’t as strong as he thinks. Take care of him.”

“Where is the Director?” A distraught, gangly man strides up to them, yanking the police tape out of the way. Jaehwan bows, and replies shakily, “En route to the hospital, sir.”

“Why was I not informed?” the man demands, and Jaehwan smiles apologetically. The man frowns, spins around, and stomps off the way he arrived. Jonghyun and Seongwoo stare after him in amusement.

“That’s Seonho,” Jaehwan whispers. “Apparently, if Minhyun died, he would be promoted, automatically. He’s been worried sick. Anyway, I’ll go now.” Jonghyun gives him a lazy wave, while Seongwoo, the dick, doesn’t spare him a glance. He walks away, stepping over the aftermath of Seonho’s distress. “Is the helicopter here yet?” he asks a nearby officer with a clipboard. He looks fresh, a newbie, by the looks of it.

“On the way, sir,” the officer snaps to attention. “Is that… Is that him, sir?”

Jaehwan turns in the direction the officer is looking at, then returns his gaze back to him and looks down at his nametag. _Officer Park Woojin._

“You’re a fan?” he asks in surprise.

“He’s a great man, sir,” Woojin reports, looking straight ahead. Jaehwan turns back to look at Seongwoo again. He and Jonghyun are bent over something that looks like a phone, and are screaming into it. He shakes his head, hearing curses like “You stupid, fat bighead-”

“Nah,” he grins. “He’s more than that.

“He’s a _good_ one.”

Woojin stares at him in bewilderment, then the sound of a chopper interrupts their conversation. He reports, “Helicopter’s arrived, sir.”

“I can hear that,” he sighs. “Let’s move the troublemaker back to Imjado.”

“Yes, sir,” Woojin salutes, then falls out and runs in the direction of the noise. Jaehwan turns yet again to look at the couple: Seongwoo has his head on Jonghyun’s shoulder and is sobbing into it.

**JONGHYUN**

When he stops weeping, Jonghyun hands him a tissue to dry himself off, then takes one to clean the snot off his sleeve. Minhyun has hung up already, having to attend a few security meetings. He’s assured the both of them that he won’t get his pay cut, so that’s one thing to be grateful for, he supposes.

“You better?” he asks, and Seongwoo blows his nose noisily.

“I said I’d bring him home,” he says hoarsely. “ I can’t, can I?”

“Well,” he begins, tucking his blanket closer to him, “you gave him what he was looking for: context.”

Seongwoo shifts a little in his seat.

“Is that good?” he inquires.

“It’s not good,” he says quickly, then frowns, “ and it’s not bad. It’s…” He can’t seem to find the words to express himself, and he sighs, raising his right hand to scratch his nose.

“Call it what you want,” he says finally, dropping the hand and taking Seongwoo’s hand in his. “It is... what it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year's eve! made it on time whew but this isn't beta-ed, please excuse any sloppy errors! i wish you all the best for 2018 !

**Author's Note:**

> credit for some of the quotes that i couldn't catch in here goes to Ariane DeVere on livejournal!
> 
> thank you for reading! comment below or find me at @wildflower_kjh on Twitter/ CuriousCat


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